


Samaritan

by fallen_arazil



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bounty Hunters, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Child Death, Divided Loyalties, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Families of Choice, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Third Person Limited, Protective John Marston, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2019-09-27 19:35:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 69,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17168072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallen_arazil/pseuds/fallen_arazil
Summary: Arthur Morgan followed his own advice and left the gang when he had a child (the canonical Eliza and Isaac), taking up as a bounty hunter. Along the way he picked up a young John Marston, who thus never runs with Dutch. Despite leaving, Arthur never truly left his connections behind him, and when Dutch asked for help, he always answered. In 1899, during the event of the game, this arrangement might eventually force Arthur to choose to whom he truly owes his loyalty.John sneered. "You think I'd protect Dutch Van der Linde? Believe me, if I knew where he was, I'd tell you. Hell, I'd go get him myself. He's worth 10 large right now."Milton sneered right back. "I am not a fool, Mister Marston, kindly do not treat me as one. You would do nothing without Arthur Morgan's say-so, and that will be what puts you on the gallows right beside him."





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Just FYI, in my head this was called Arthur 'Batman' Morgan and John 'the Boy Wonder' Marston. Unfortunately it it was more angsty than this implies.
> 
> Also today (Dec26) is my birthday. So I guess getting this chapter off my hands is my gift to myself.

It had been their last attempt to retrieve the money, and, ultimately, the one that finally convinced them to head north, even though not a single shot was fired.

They met on an overlook near Riggs station. When they rode up, Arthur Morgan was standing at the edge of the promontory, feet apart, one hand on the grip of the shotgun he held across his shoulders. John Martson was crouched down on his heels beside him, elbows on his thighs and his repeater laid across his knees, hat shadowing his eyes. They were a study in contrasts, Arthur big and broad, John narrow and lean, Arthur tan and blonde, John pale and dark-haired, Arthur's expression easy and calm, John's tense and suspicious. Really, it was a wonder anyone ever believed the two men were brothers.

"Mister Morgan, Mister Marston," Dutch greeted, with his usual expansiveness, as he and Javier dismounted, "I appreciate you sparing me some time."

"From what I've been hearing, thought it might be important," Arthur replied, tilting his hat up with one finger. "You don't look too worse for wear, considering."

Dutch waved off the comment. "Mister Marston, I must admit, I didn't expect to see you. I know how you feel about … this sort of thing."

Dutch sounded amused. John didn't. "Well, I could hardly let my boss ride out alone after two notorious outlaws, could I?"

Dutch guffawed, as if this was the best joke he'd ever heard, and Arthur's lips quirked up at the corner, eyes shadowed by the brim of his hat. He swung his shotgun down off his shoulder, taking his finger off the trigger guard, completely relaxed. "Don't flatter 'im, John. He'll start tellin' you 'bout the bounty he's got in Nevada."

John's expression didn't crack. "Reckon it's less than what he's got in West Elizabeth."

Dutch expression fell into seriousness, brows furrowed. "That bad, is it?"

Arthur's expression similarly soured. "Christ. _Yes_ , Dutch, _that bad_."

John stood from his crouch, still lean as a colt despite being nearly thirty, and grasped his repeater in both hands. Unlike Arthur, his stance showed him to be ready to fire. "Dunn brothers told us that, if they got you, they was gonna retire."

Dutch nodded in acknowledgment, expression pinched. "We need to get back into Blackwater."

"No." Arthur's response was instantaneous and unwavering.

"I just need in and out, Arthur. We left some things behind." Dutch cajoled.

"If you want to die, Dutch, I can shoot you right here." Arthur replied, with a smile that was more like a baring of teeth.

Dutch took a step closer to the other two men—John tensed, Arthur didn't. "I cover my face and you ride me in like one of your bounties." Dutch said, his voice dropping into the lyrical rhythm of working a con. "You get me to our funds and back out, you can have—"

"Fuck your money, Dutch!" Arthur snapped. "I told you all them years ago, I ain't runnin' your cons anymore! You want help covering your tracks, losing your tail? Fine. Christ knows I'd'a been dead if not for you. But I ain't being your patsy."

"I dunno, sounds like a good idea to me, Arthur," John drawled, eyes half-lidded. "Bringing 'em in like one'a our bounties."

Javier's hand fell to the butt of one of his pistols. "Try it, _compadre._ "

Almost in unison, Arthur and Dutch reached out, Arthur's hand on John's arm, Dutch's on Javier's. Dutch chuckled, raising one eyebrow at Arthur with a smile.

"Loyalty is a grand thing, isn't it?" He said lightly, and after a moment Arthur nodded, patting John's arm lightly before letting go.

"Let me paint you a picture, Dutch," Arthur said. "When John and I rode out here, there was an armed lawman at every intersection in Blackwater. The hotel was sold out with the number of Pinkertons come to town, some of them were camping out in the city park. When we were crossing the Montana? I counted at least five campfires along the shore, and I _guarantee_ that every one of them was bounty hunters. You couldn't _piss_ right now without hitting someone who wants you dead."

Dutch worked his jaw, digesting that information, his expression dark as a thundercloud. "There is a _lot_ of money over there, Arthur."

"Can't spend it if you're dead, Dutch."

After a long moment, Dutch let out a sigh. "I take your point. I suppose we'll … figure out something else."

Arthur chuckled. "You always do."

Dutch took the hand that had been on Javier's arm and held it out to Arthur; John made an irritated noise when Arthur slung his shotgun over his shoulder by the strap and took the two steps forward to shake it, firm, like they were both honorable men.

"For what its worth, Dutch," Arthur said, "I actually prefer you alive."

"Sure," Dutch replied with a smile, clapping his other hand onto Arthur's elbow, "its an extra five hundred dollars that way, isn't it?"

Arthur laughed, but John fished briefly in his satchel and then threw down a bounty poster between them, creased from being folded, edges torn from being in the satchel.

"An extra two thousand, actually," he said with what could only be called a sneer, before turning his back on them and stalking back towards the station, where Dutch had seen their horses hitched.

The poster was an excellent likeness, with the notable exception of the expression. He had been depicted with downward arched eyebrows and a cruel sneer, no doubt an attempt to emphasize his villainy. At the bottom was the bounty:

**"Dutch" Van der Linde**  
**Wanted for Murder, Theft, Robbery, Assault**  
**$8000 dead**  
**$10000 alive**

"Holy shit, Dutch," Javier whispered, wide-eyed, and even Dutch looked a little taken aback by the amount. Arthur grimaced as he took his hand back, shaking his head, but it wasn't because of the bounty.

"Pinkerton Agency pulled me in for 'questions' a few nights after you hit the riverboat. Ain't no secret we used to run together, after all." Arthur shrugged, seeming slightly embarrassed by the fact. "John's been a little extra sour about you since then."

"John has always struck me as a fine young man," Dutch replied magnanimously. "You should keep him away from silver-tongued conman types."

Arthur tipped his hat to both Dutch and Javier before he turned to leave, pausing after a few steps to look over his shoulder.

"Sean MacGuire. He's one of yours, ain't he?"

Javier tensed, but Dutch only look thoughtful. "What have you heard?"

"There's a prison boat, leaves Blackwater every Friday with federal prisoners," Arthur replied. "Heads up the upper Montana."

"And you're telling us this out of the goodness of your heart?" Javier snapped suspiciously. Dutch gave his companion another quelling gesture.

"Arthur has never steered me wrong, Javier. Not once in twenty years." Dutch assured him, and Arthur smiled slightly at the comment, a mere quirk of the lips.

"Give my regards to Hosea," Arthur said, then he and Dutch exchanged a final nod before Arthur turned to join John. Dutch and Javier turned back to their horses, outlaws and bounty hunters returning to their sides.

*

"That man is a snake," John said, as soon as Arthur was in earshot, "and you're a fool to trust him."

Arthur suppressed a sigh, instead just shaking his head as he mounted up. "How many years have we known each other, John? And in those years, how many times have we had this conversation that you're tryin' to start?"

"Obviously not e _nough_ ," John replied.

It wasn't that John didn't understand. He understood only too well. Arthur had been fifteen when Dutch saved him from death; for John, he had been the same age when he'd met Arthur. Arthur had run with Dutch for nearly ten years before he left; John was still running with Arthur. John and Arthur's lives were mirror images of each other—the difference, as far as John was concerned, was that Arthur was a good man, worthy of devotion, and Dutch _wasn't._

"Dutch ain't never done wrong by me," Arthur told him, the same response he always gave. "He took me in when he didn't have to and let me go when I went."

"And you've more than paid him back! You don't owe him nothing—"

"I'll always owe 'im," Arthur cut him off. "A debt like that don't go away."

John snapped his mouth shut. Given the givens, that would be a hard thing for him to argue against.

See, his bounty poster, the one Arthur had picked up more than ten years ago, hadn't said his age—why would it? Just a crude likeness and a list of all his sins. His bounty been something like fifty dollars, nothing compared to a true outlaw, but enough to make him worth the trouble. If any other bounty hunter had found him, he'd have probably been hung. It was dumb luck that it was Arthur who did—the ex-outlaw who still quietly believed that some laws deserved to be broken and some guilty folk deserved to go free.

John could still picture the expression on Arthur's face when he finally got his lantern lit and illuminated his quarry. It was a sort of outraged disbelief, his brow furrowed and his lips twisted into a scowl. At the time, John had thought it was the righteous anger of a lawman, but then Arthur had reached down and pulled him to his feet with one hand, demanding to known how long it had been since his last meal.

So sure, John understood a debt you couldn't repay. Or the feeling of having one, anyway.

The thing that Arthur always seemed to forget was that they were actually pretty goddamn well known. Not famous, not like they'd be recognized by a stranger on the street, but lawmen and other bounty hunters knew of the Morgan boys, knew their reputation for not always staying strictly within the confines of the law. When you hunted bounties or carried a badge there was always some leeway, so long as you were better than the folks you caught, but it was also a competitive business. The minute someone saw Arthur with Dutch, he was on the bounty poster instead of hunting it. They had already come close when those Pinkertons swooped down to question Arthur on his 'past associations'.

"You always tell me not to worry about you," John said, hours later, as they were crossing the Montana again. "This kinda shit? It makes me worry about you."

Arthur laughed at that, shaking his head like he was throwing off water. "And folk ask why I ain't married. Reckon I oughta tell 'em my wife rides with me."

He galloped off before John could box him 'round the ears.

*

John had been on the run from the law for four years when he met Arthur Morgan.

After Arthur had found him sleeping rough in the woods and told him, in his own words, 'I ain't sending no child to the gallows, what's wrong wit'u?' he had taken the boy to a house outside of Armadillo and left him in the care of a woman named Eliza, who had the exasperated patience of a sister but he introduced as his wife. There was also a small boy named Isaac, about five, who John was terrified to be around (he was _so fucking small_ ) but who could not have been less interested in John.

Before he left, Arthur had dropped a companionable hand on John's shoulder and told him that if anything went missing from his home, he'd cut John's balls off.

"Arthur is a good judge of character, surprisingly," Eliza told him, the first time she set a plate of food in front of him, unasked. "Reckon he's known enough bad men to know one when he sees one. And anyway," she added, breezily, "if you value your balls, you ain't gonna try nothing."

"He was a gunslinger, wasn't he?" John asked, because it was the only thing that seemed to make sense. "An outlaw."

Eliza sighed at that, shaking her head. "I suppose he still is. They want him up in Illinois, I hear. Five hundred dollars." At John's surprised breath, she gave him a sly look out of the corner of her eye. "Don't you go getting any ideas now, son. Arthur could be half-dead and he'd still be able to handle a skinny runt like you."

John had no doubt of that—the man had four inches and fifty pounds on him.

"How'd he stop?" John asked, because that was the important question. John had been on the run since he was eleven years old, one way or another—yes, that was only four years, but already it seemed like the weight of past sins would never allow him to stop committing new ones. How can you start fresh when folk won't quit chasing?

Eliza glanced meaningfully at Isaac, sitting by the fire with some sort of whittled wooden toy. "He had a good reason."

"Just like that?" John challenged, stunned, and Eliza snorted inelegantly.

"No, not _just like that_. First years of Isaac's life he'd roll in every couple of months, like a vagabond. Reckon I wasn't expecting much out of 'im but he said he wanted to do right by me. Then 'bout two, three years ago he shows up with a wedding ring and …" she looked down at her hand, a thin band of gold glinting on her left ring finger, "… well, I'm a practical woman. I'll take what I'm offered."

"And you married him, knowing what he was?" John had never understood women, but he gathered that outlaws attracted a certain type, and they weren't usually homesteaders.

Something flashed in Eliza's eyes at that, a defensiveness, but whether it was of her own decisions or of Arthur, John couldn't say. "What Arthur is, is the kind of person that finds out his bounty is a fifteen year old boy, so he takes him home to a clean, warm house and gives him something to eat."

And that was the end of that.

Arthur came back a week later with two hundred dollars, cash, which he gave to Eliza, and three sets of new clothes, which he gave to John. The entire week he was gone, Eliza had fed him as often as she did herself and Isaac, even laundered his (admittedly shabby) clothing. He hadn't been so well looked after since his mother had died.

"Why are you doing this?" He asked Arthur, because it was the obvious question. Arthur made an uninterested noise from where he was whittling by the fire.

"Eliza's done most of it," he said absently, which was true, but not the point. Eliza would never have seen his face if Arthur had turned him in.

"You don't know me from Adam," John pressed, and Arthur's eyes flashed up at him, glittering in the firelight, dangerous.

"Oh, I know you, son," he said, darkly. "I _was_ you."

*

Blackwater's Pinkerton population hadn't diminished during their three day absence. Arthur was completely unconcerned about their unsubtle surveillance, but it made John's skin itch. He'd grown unused to the feeling of being hunted, and found that he resented the reminder. Not to mention, whatever arrangements Arthur had with the Pinkertons—and he did have them, nearly all of his bounties had been rescinded—were for past crimes, not fresh ones like rubbing shoulders with Dutch Van der Linde.

But it wasn't Arthur that Agent Milton approached outside the saloon, it was John.

"Ah, Mister Marston," Milton said, with an affectation of friendliness, "just who I was hoping to see." When John stared him down in silence, he continued, "It is Marston, isn't it? I know you use _Morgan_ professionally, but you are John Marston."

John tried to channel some of Arthur's nonchalance. "Sounds like the name of a dead man."

Milton smiled, all teeth, like a alligator. "Oh, you will be, Mister Marston, if you don't reconsider some of your … alliances."

John knew what this was, of course, the moment that Milton caught him alone. "If you're asking me for dirt on Arthur Morgan, I'm going to laugh in your face."

The other man's demeanor immediately chilled, eyes narrowing. "Your friend is treading dangerous ground, Mister Marston. His past associations with Dutch Van der Linde are well known. His _current_ associations with the man are going to get him in trouble."

John sneered. "You think I'd protect Dutch Van der Linde? Believe me, if I knew where he was, I'd tell you. Hell, I'd go get him myself. He's worth 10 large right now."

Milton sneered right back. "I am not a fool, Mister Marston, kindly do not treat me as one. You would do nothing without Arthur Morgan's say-so, and that will be what puts you on the gallows right beside him."

John stepped up into Milton's space. He was a slight man, but tall, and he used every inch of that advantage to tower over Milton, tried to put every man he'd ever killed into his eyes as he stared him down. "You leave Arthur and me out of your shit. You want Dutch Van der Linde? Go fuckin' find him. We don't work for him and we don't work for you, neither."

"Oh, that's where you're wrong, Mister Marston," Milton replied, unruffled. "The Pinkerton Detective Agency is responsible for managing a large number of the cash bounties issued and claimed in this … lawless cesspool. If you and Mister Morgan wish to continue earning your livelihood on bounties, it would do you well not to antagonize us. Of course," he took a step back from John and looked down, ostentatiously straitening his perfectly pressed, starch white cuffs, "maybe you could find another line of work. What other talents _do_ you have, Mister Marston?"

"Well," Arthur drawled from behind him, making John jerk in surprise, "he's damn good at cheating at poker. Reckon he could support us in our old age off that."

Milton looked back up with a sour expression, perhaps at being discovered trying to divide and conquer. "Mister Morgan," he greeted, with a curt nod of his head.

Arthur squared up next to John. "Agent Millstone," Arthur replied. Milton didn't correct him, clearly knowing a jab when he heard one. "Have I thanked you for your hospitality the other day?"

"Just business, Mister Morgan." Milton replied lightly, tipping his hat. "Gentlemen."

Arthur put a cigarette between his lips as they both watch the man leave, lighting a match against the heel of his boot and cupping it to the end. He didn't speak until Milton rounded the corner, out of sight. "Reckon I don't need to ask what he wanted," he murmured, eyes narrowed, lips turned down in a thoughtful frown.

"Reckon you don't," John agreed, accepting the cigarette as Arthur passed it to him, the end moist from Arthur's lips.

*

John had _wanted_ to fuck Arthur since he was sixteen. He'd known then that it was bad and wrong, but most of his life had been bad and wrong, so it was hard to work up a great deal of guilt over the matter.

The problem was that the first time he _tried_ to fuck Arthur, he was fifteen.

Eliza slept like the dead, consequence of sleeping in a saloon backroom for many of her younger years, so she never stirred when Arthur came in after dark. John slept light, consequence of being on the run for so many years, and always woke, so when Arthur clomped in sometime after midnight one night in April, John was instantly, motionlessly awake in his bedroll in front of the fire. The house had two rooms, but Arthur didn't sleep in the bedroom with Eliza and Isaac—when he was home, he slept on a folding cot in the living area. That night he didn't seem like he was even going to bother with that, throwing a bedroll down onto the floor rather than retrieving the cot from the shed.

John hadn't decided anything until Arthur started stripping down in the middle of the room, tossing his his clothing to the foot of the bedroll, the items thumping wetly against the wood floor. There was no conscious thought of 'paying him back' or 'earning his keep'—John wasn't quite that perverse—but in the moment, it somehow seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to slip out of his bedroll and crawl across the floor to Arthur's feet. The man was so tired and the room was so dark that he didn't even notice until John's hands touched the fastenings on his union suit.

His response was to cuff John upside the head hard enough that it knocked him to his hands on the floor.

"Fucking Christ," Arthur hissed under his breath, as he lit the lantern on the table. "Marston? What the hell are you—"

"I'm sorry," John cut him off, abruptly in a panic, because honestly, what the hell _had_ he been doing? "I just thought you'd want— I'm _good_ at it, so I—" He cut himself off at Arthur's intense look, eyes shadowed in the flickering lantern light.

"You're good at it." Arthur repeated after a beat, his voice as dangerous as John had ever heard it. It made John want to curl up in a ball like child so he did, face buried in his knees, arms wrapped up over his head to ward off a blow. He'd miscalculated, he'd aimed and missed, and now Arthur was going to throw him out for the bounty hunters, or turn him in himself, or …

John heard a heavy sigh, and when he glanced up Arthur had dropped himself into one of the kitchen chairs, his elbows on the table and the heels of his hands pressing into his eyes. "Goddamn it, we're going to have to _talk_ ," he muttered, scowling blindly, as if by _talk_ he meant _get shot_.

"We don't," John said quickly, eyes wide, because suddenly being turned into the law didn't seem so bad, by comparison. "We really, really don't."

Arthur dropped his hands to the table in front of him. "I ain't mad, Marston. Just shuddup and siddown."

John dragged his feet like he was headed to the gallows, but he stood and lowered himself into the kitchen chair across from Arthur. The other man no longer looked deadly, just annoyed and uncomfortable. He tapped his fingers on the kitchen table for a long minute, working his jaw, before he spoke.

"Look, John … you ain't a whore, alright? Whatever you done before, I don't care. Right here, right now, you ain't."

Strangely, unexpectedly, the feeling that overtook John was outrage. He clenched his fists on the table and gritted his teeth so hard he could hear them creak. He'd never actually attached the word to himself, and to hear it come from Arthur's mouth was _humiliating_. "What kind of a thing to say is that? Of course I ain't a fuckin' _whore_."

If there was any comfort to be had, it was that Arthur seemed equally uncomfortable, on edge, desperate to escape this conversation. "Fine," he said tightly, "okay. Because you don't owe me anything, alright? Not a goddamn thing."

That was clearly untrue, but it was not an opportune time to argue it.

John stared down at the table, eyes unfocused, and unclenched his teeth. In a whisper, he admitted, "I wanted to do something nice for you."

Arthur grimaced, looking away. "Fine. You want to do something nice, in the morning you can get to work re-shingling the roof on the shed. Now go back to bed."

John felt a lingering dissatisfaction with the response, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. "Arthur?"

Arthur stood up from the table, turning his back to John. "I said, go to bed. We're done talking about this."

They weren't, of course, but the future conversations, years later, would have a very different tone.

***

They stayed in Blackwater for a two weeks, sweeping up a few mid-level members of the Del Lobo gang, before heading out towards Annesburg. Small towns were better for finding bounties, in general—cities like Blackwater or Saint Denis preferred to rely on their own lawmen or federal men, like the Pinkertons. They had stopped for the night in Valentine when John saw the newspaper headline, and he wasted no time in bringing it to slap down in front of Arthur at the saloon.

**TRAIN ROBBED**  
**\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**  
**PITCHED BATTLE LEAVES MANY DEAD.**  
**\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**  
**OUTLAWS SEND TRAIN ON DRIVERLESS JOURNEY.**  
**\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**  
**OWNED BY LEVITICUS CORNWALL**

The article was alongside another about the robbery in Blackwater, but whoever had written it had not made a connection between the two.

"Reckon your friend has been busy," John said, not bothering to hide his disapproval.

Arthur glanced over the article, his mouth going tight for moment, but in the end he simply flipped the paper face down and looked over at John with a tired expression. "I know what kind of people they is, John. You live outside the law, people die. Hell, we live inside the law these days, people _still_ die."

"In theory, we're lawmen," John replied. "We ain't too different from the folk that they killed."

"Jesus _Christ_ , John," Arthur snapped, "if this is a problem then _fucking leave_. I don't have a leash on ya."

The outburst was so unexpected that it hit John like a punch to the gut. "I don't want to leave," he forced out between gritted teeth. "I also don't want _you_ to _hang_. Dutch is hot right now, that's all I'm saying."

"I seen the same bounty posters you have," Arthur replied, cross, "and I'm getting pretty damn tired of hearin' his name outta your mouth."

"I'd be happy if I never had to say it again," John replied, " _believe me_ , I would, because that would mean you were done being his _errand boy_ —"

Arthur stood so fast that his chair skidded back and grabbed John by the unfastened collar of his shirt. For a moment John thought he was going to get punched, but instead Arthur dragged him bodily out the side door of the saloon, into the muddy alley, and shoved him up against the exterior wall.

"John Marston," He growled into John's face, only inches away, "I swear to _God_ , if you do not stop harping at me about Dutch like a _jealous fishwife_ , I am going to knock your teeth down your goddamn _throat_."

John hadn't noticed his hands coming up to cover Arthur's where they were fisted in his shirt, but he let them go now, dropping his hands to his side, absolutely no threat. "l'm not doing it to rile you," he said, carefully, evenly, "but you've got a blind spot a mile wide when it comes to Dutch Van der Linde."

Arthur shoved John up against the wall one more time, a warning, before letting him go. "That's what you refuse to understand, John," he said, shaking his head, "I ain't blind about what Dutch is. I know _exactly_ what he is, because _I'm not any different_." John was already shaking his head, but this was another argument they'd often had—Arthur only ever credited himself for his mistakes. "I'm just as much a killer as he is, and you know it," he insisted, eyes dark under the brim of his hat.

"You're not like him," John said gruffly.

Arthur looked down, his hat hiding his eyes, and shook his head again, hands on his hip. "I tried not to be," he said, under his breath, almost to himself. "Lord knows I tried."

*

John was 19 when Eliza and Isaac died. He preferred to think of it that way, that they just _died_ , because the truth was—

They were bounty hunting, him and Arthur, up in West Elizabeth. Arthur had started taking him on safe, local bounties when he was seventeen, but only recently had he let John accompany him further afield. The thing that made his gut twist, afterward, was that John had been _excited_ to go. He _idolized_ Arthur, in the starry-eyed way of a teenager, and any time where he got Arthur to himself was worth its weight in gold. At home (and he had thought of it as _home_ by then) it was a boring routine of him, Eliza and Isaac, doing the same things over and over, just waiting for Arthur.

(He'd never thought about it in those terms, but he had loved Eliza and Isaac. Not the way that Arthur loved them, probably, and definitely not the way he loved Arthur, but he had.)

They were gone nine days. It wasn't until they were practically at the front door of the house that they noticed it was only propped up against the frame, the hinges busted out. Something in John's mind had frozen then, refused to acknowledge what that could mean. Arthur, on the other hand … well, Arthur had lived as an outlaw a lot longer then John had.

"John," he said, in that dangerously even tone of his, standing utterly motionless on the porch steps, "go take the horses 'round back."

Arthur had already covered the bodies when John came in. He was crouched on his heels over the white sheet laid across the floor, left hand pressed over his mouth, gripping so tight that his knuckles were white, right hand still holding a corner of the sheet. The shape underneath it was small (he was _so fucking small_ ).

John cried. Arthur didn't. Arthur didn't say anything at all for what seemed like a long, long time.

  


 


	2. Chapter Two, Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John liked to believe that it helped. A part of him thought that, now, he was all Arthur had.
> 
> But he was wrong—Arthur had more than John, he had a past, and it was a week after the burial when it came trotting up to the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occurred to me that, in some ways, I've made John into the Abigail of this story.
> 
> I feel like it needs to be said that, while this is in theory an established relationship fic, its still intended as a slow burn as the 'relationship' goes from deeply compartmentalized to actually functional. This will become clearer as it goes on, I hope.

Most people with high bounties had been on the run for a long time, and bounty hunters could often list off the top most valued from memory, people like Dutch, Colm O'Driscoll, Flaco Hernandez and the like. That was why the bounty poster John picked up at Riggs Station was such a shock—$1500 dollars for a feller neither Arthur nor John had ever heard of before. Arthur reckoned they ought to ask the Sheriff about it, and when they got out to Strawberry to do so, the reason for the high bounty became clear.

The town looked like a battlefield.

John had only been to Strawberry a handful of times—its foppish mayor disliked issuing bounties, thought it hurt the town's reputation as a vacation resort to be seen as lawless—but it had always been a quiet, quaint, somewhat picturesque slice of Americana. This time, when they rode up, the streets were empty, windows were shuttered, and there were splintered bullet holes on nearly every wall, roof and fence. The sheriff's office, when they rode up, was empty, and missing half of the basement wall, besides.

"Holy shit," John muttered under his breath.

"Reckon we can guess why the Sheriff ain't the one going after him," Arthur agreed. "The Mayor holes up in the hotel here as I recall. Maybe he can point us in the right direction."

Nicholas Timmins was a smarmy, weaselly little man, but it was to their advantage that he was a coward. He was only to happy to welcome them when they mentioned the name from the poster.

"You're bounty hunters then?" He asked, stupidly. They both had pistols at each hip; Arthur had his shotgun across his back, John his repeater. They were both brown with trail dust, and neither had lately seen a razor. "You sure look the part."

John glanced sideways at Arthur and rolled his eyes.

"Arthur Morgan," Arthur said, and waved hand at John, "this here's my brother John. We're out of New Austin, saw your poster at Riggs station."

The mayor took the poster that John was still holding, staring at it like he'd seen a ghost. "Yes, it's … I was here, you know. In the hotel. During the shootout."

"Looks like it was a nasty business." John piped in, a note of curiosity in his voice, and the mayor nodded absently.

"Oh yes, terrible. Terrible. It was—" his throat worked as he swallowed, looking vaguely nauseated. "We lost nearly two dozen men, including the sheriff and both deputies. Five women and two children were hit by ricochets, one woman lost her eye."

Arthur cleared his throat. "Well, I can see why he's worth so much. Any idea where he might have gone?"

The mayor shrugged, still staring at the sketch with distant eyes. "The sheriff picked him up north of town, originally. He was with a colored boy, but that one got away. If they had a camp up there he might have gone back, I suppose." It wasn't much, but it sounded like it was best lead they were gonna get.

The hotel manager stopped them as they were walking out, his expression grim. "Gentlemen," he said, voice serious, "I wanted to say … this fella, I wouldn't try to take him alive."

Arthur and John exchanged a glance, but it was Arthur who spoke. "Why's that?"

"He was laughing," the man replied, sounding haunted. "He was shooting half the able men in this town, and when you could hear over the gunfire, he was laughing."

*

They hadn't even really started trying to track him when they spotted him—they were setting up their own camp in the hills east of town when they saw the firelight.

"It can't be," John said to Arthur, incredulous. "Man shoots two dozen people, gets a fifteen hundred dollar bounty, and a week later he's still camped less than a day away?"

"Yep, it's crazy," Arthur drawled, binoculars to his eyes, "then again, sounds like this feller _is_ crazy."

"Maybe he's waiting on his partner?" John suggested, accepting the binoculars as Arthur passed them over. "That colored boy the mayor mentioned?"

Arthur shook his head. "Other one got away clean. No reason he wouldn't have come back already, if he were comin'. Naw, I think he's got some unfinished business 'round here."

They were far enough away that the figure at the campfire was hard to make out, even with binoculars, but John could see long blonde hair and a pale, wide-brimmed hat. Those matched the poster in his saddlebag. "Shit, I think it really is him." He lowered the binoculars, glancing back to Arthur. "How do you wanna play it?"

Arthur pursed his lips, considering. "We need to get a better look at his face. From this far away he could be William McKinley for all we know."

John cursed. He knew Arthur, so he knew exactly where this was going. "Do not say it, Arthur, do not—"

"I'm gonna go up there," he said. John cursed again, more vehemently—Arthur cuffed him gently on the back of the head in response, knocking his hat askew. "Don't moan at me, Marston. You're the better shot but I'm the quicker draw. I want you up on that ledge covering me in case things go pear-shaped."

John put the binoculars to his eyes again, this time eyeing the terrain. The feller had picked a well-sheltered campsite, only one way in or out, but he could see a few places on the ledge above that would give him a view of the entire clearing. "Yeah," he agreed after a moment, "all right. Reckon I'll have to ride with you. If I take Old Boy, he'll hear there's two of us."

They circled around the back of the camp to let John set up on the overhanging ledge—it gave him a perfect view of the small camp, while being dark enough that the man below was unlikely to see him unless he knew to look. Not a minute later he heard the hoofbeats of Boadicea, Arthur's horse, trotting down the narrow path into the camp.

No one did nonchalance like Arthur. He could walk into a room full of lawmen or a room full of outlaws with the same outward lack of concern. John had his theories about why this was, but the simplest explanation had always been that Arthur showed no fear because he _had_ no fear—not of his own death, anyway. It was not something John was happy about—he certainly had plenty of fear of Arthur's death—but it fit everything he knew of the man. Arthur could stare into the barrel of a loaded gun as if he wasn't afraid to die because he _wasn't_.

(Put a gun to the head of a woman, or a child, or _John_ , and it was a different matter entirely, of course.)

Arthur wasn't literally staring down a gun barrel as he approached Micah Bell's camp, but having seen what the man did in Strawberry, it felt like largely the same sort of situation to John.

Bell heard Arthur at the same time John did, but his reaction was minimal. His head jerked up to peer at the narrow fissure that led up the the top of the plateau, the only entrance to the camp site, but he didn't stand or draw either of the guns at his hips, just shifted so that the fire was between him and the entrance when Arthur emerged into the light of the fire, on foot, holding Boadicea's reins.

"This here is a private camp, stranger," Bell called out, before Arthur could speak. "I ain't lookin' for company."

"Well gee, I'm sorry, mister," Arthur called back, his tone bright and jovial. "I was only thinkin' that these woods is dangerous at night for a feller on his own. Thought you might take pity on me."

There was a pause, and through his scope, John could see Bell look Arthur up and down. "Yeah," he drawled, his tone sarcastic, "you look real unprepared. Who you think you're foolin', lawman?"

If it had been John down there he would have tensed, panicked, probably started spitting angry denials, but this was just another staring-down-the-barrel situation for Arthur, and he only cocked his head. "I ain't a lawman," he said calmly, "but I am a bounty hunter. And you're Micah Bell, if I'm not mistaken."

"Micah Bell the Third, actually," he replied, and then there was a flurry of motion as he and Arthur both went for their guns.

Arthur was right when he'd said that he was a faster draw than John. He likely would be faster draw than Bell, too, in a proper quickdraw contest, but the fraction of a second that he spent sending Boadicea back up the trail meant that Bell fired first, pistol in each hand, lurching to his feet beside the fire. Arthur fell to the dirt, but whether it was due to being hit or to avoid being hit, John couldn't tell. He cocked his repeater as soon as he saw Arthur go down and fired two quick shots—one between Bell's feet, the other into the crown of his hat, blowing it off his head.

Bell froze.

"The next one's going into your skull!" John yelled down from the ledge. "Drop your guns and put your hands in the air!"

Bell hesitated, but Arthur was staggering to his feet, pistol in hand, to cover him from the other side, and he finally seemed to resign himself, lowering his weapons.

"Two against one, lawman? That ain't fair odds," he sneered, even as he laid his guns on the ground by the fire.

"All's fair in love, war and bounties," Arthur replied, before he swept Bell's feet out from under him to tie him at the wrists and ankles.

John waited until Arthur had Bell secured before circling around to the pathway on foot. He brought Boadicea back with him, the paint mare snuffling at his jacket as they walked. Bell was propped up in a sitting position by the fire when he finally got down to the camp, and Arthur was on the other side of the fire with Bell's saddlebag across his lap. His jacket was off, and he was probing at a bloody rend in the fabric of his shirt.

"Double check my knots," he said, without looking up—it was a normal request; hunting bounties alive meant being damn sure they were trussed securely—but John instead edged around to Arthur's side of the fire.

"You're bleeding," John said, needlessly, grasping the button front of Arthur's shirt as if to pull it open. Arthur batted his hands away.

"It'll keep. Check the knots."

The wound on Arthur's side was high up on the left, it had scraped across his ribs almost by his armpit. It didn't look all that deep, but the thing that struck John was that the placement meant Bell had likely been aiming for the heart. Clearly the fella didn't screw around. John itched to fix it, to pin Arthur down and _make_ him accept help, but he didn't. He went to Bell and checked the knots.

"You better kill me, cowboy," Bell sneered up at him, twisting to look over his shoulder as John tugged at the ropes on his wrist, tied perfect as always, "because when my friends come for me, I'm gonna kill you."

"Shut up, _cowboy_." John replied, shoving him face-first into the dirt. "We want you alive, but there's plenty of parts we can take off that won't kill you."

"You got no idea who you're messin' with, kid," Bell spat, twisting onto his back. "I run with _Dutch Van der Linde_ ,"

Bell had barely finished speaking before Arthur was on his feet over him, yanking the bound man up off the ground by his collar. "You're a _goddamn liar_ ," he snarled, right into Bell's face. "Dutch wouldn't wipe his _boots_ on you, you piece of _shit._ "

Bell laughed in his face. "Ooh, someone's a _fan_."

Arthur punched him, hard enough that the man went out like a light. He was panting as he dropped Bell, face white, and John didn't think it was due to the bullet gouge on his side, though that was still steadily dripping down his shirt. John didn't have it in him to be surprised by Bell's revelation—because of _course_ he was one of Dutch's boys. Wasn't everything about Dutch these days?

*

John first met Dutch Van der Linde a week after Eliza and Isaac's funeral.

The night after they put them in the ground (one stone marker, but two names: Eliza Morgan. Isaac Morgan. Beloved Son. Beloved Wife and Mother.) John crawled into Arthur's bedroll and, in some ways, he never left. Arthur was a gruff, stoic man, not one to accept care, so John didn't offer it. He simply curled up against Arthur's chest, hands fisted into his union suit, and let Arthur believe that John was doing it to comfort himself. It wasn't entirely a lie.

Eliza had hugged him, on occasion. Isaac as well, more open with childlike affection. There was no comparing that to the way it felt when Arthur wrapped one enormous arm around John's back and sighed into his hair, the sound more resignation than contentment.

"You ain't a child, John," he had murmured, gently, but when John didn't reply he just sighed again and let it lie.

John liked to believe that it helped. A part of him thought that, now, he was all Arthur had.

But he was wrong—Arthur had more than John, he had a _past_ , and it was a week after the burial when it came trotting up to the house.

John's first impression of Dutch was that he was too _clean._ He and Arthur were always coated in trail dust and smelling of tobacco and whiskey, but the man that rode up on his pure white horse was immaculate from head to toe, like dirt wouldn't dare touch him. John's pappy, when he was alive, had always told him that you couldn't trust a man with clean hands.

"Arthur, my boy," Dutch said, laying those clean hands on his shoulders, "I came as soon as I heard."

John had known nothing about Dutch then—Arthur never spoke of him, only rarely spoke of his past at all—but what he did know was that, when Arthur looked at Dutch, the expression of wounded gratitude on his has face made John's skin crawl. John had lived with Arthur for four years and this man, this too-clean popinjay was nowhere to be seen in all that time. Then he appeared out of nowhere, and Arthur looked at him like—

Well, he looked at him the way John tried not to look at Arthur.

" _How_ did you hear—?" Arthur started to ask, shaking his head. Dutch patted his shoulder, comforting, paternal.

"What, you think I just forgot about you when you left?" He chided. "We're family, son. I keep eyes on my family."

John wondered if this man had ever even met Isaac and Eliza.

Arthur was still shaking his head, his expression disbelieving. "I just … it's been _years_."

"I know," Dutch said, sounding regretful, "and that's my fault. I … I didn't want you to go, you know that. I suppose I was punishing you, and it was cruel of me."

Arthur huffed out a breath and took a step back, looking down at the ground, hands on his hips. John had never before seen him look so _young_. "I can't say I would have done any different, in your shoes. But it's …" Arthur wiped his hand across his face, as is he could skim off the emotions, "… it's good to see you, Dutch."

When Arthur said the name, that was when it clicked. He'd been hunting bounties with Arthur for two years, and there were a few posters that they would see at every single sheriff office, no matter how far afield they went—people that were wanted in every state.

"Holy shit," he exclaimed, before he thought better of it, "you're Dutch Van der Linde."

Intellectually, John knew that Arthur was—had been—an outlaw. Arthur didn't talk about it, but he didn't try to hide it, either. And not an outlaw the way John had been, a dumb kid in over his head—Arthur had, at some point, had a five hundred dollar bounty. They'd brought in murderers who were worth only a _tenth_ of that. And Dutch? At the time, his bounty had been something like a thousand dollars, dead or alive. A thousand dollar outlaw, standing there and speaking to Arthur like he was the prodigal son.

Dutch turned his eyes to John as if he'd only just noticed him. The gaze he cast felt heavy, assessing, a cool sort of calculation behind his eyes. "I see my reputation proceeds me," he said, lightly. "What stories have you been telling about me, Arthur?"

"Only the ones that won't get me arrested," Arthur replied, "so—none."

Dutch guffawed, clapping Arthur on the shoulder. "Oh Arthur, I have missed you."

That night, Dutch asked Arthur to leave with him. He needed his family, Dutch said, never mind that John was right there, sleeping on the floor in front of the fire. Never mind that Eliza and Isaac had only been in the ground a _week_. No, what Arthur needed was to be with his _family_. John knows that his memories of Dutch are clouded by his own distrust of the man, and he was half asleep when it happened, but still, John would _swear_ he saw the briefest flash of inhuman, incandescent rage on Dutch's face when Arthur said 'no'.

*

"He has to be lying," Arthur said, as John was stitching closed the bloody gouge in his side that Bell had given him. "There's no way Dutch would put up with one of his boys pulling shit like that."

John didn't voice his thoughts: that any true, intimate knowledge Arthur had of Dutch was at least fifteen years out of date. A lot could change in fifteen years. "Sure. He's lying. So there's no reason not to take him straight back to Strawberry."

John was concentrating on the stitches, so he couldn't _see_ the narrow-eyed glare Arthur aimed at him, but he could _feel_ it, hot on his skin like the glare of the sun. "You think he's telling the truth."

"Did I say that? Think I said the opposite," John said mildly.

"Don't be _coy_ with me, John." Arthur snapped, knocking his hands away, and John sat back, resigned.

"You don't wanna know what I think, Arthur," he sighed, scrubbing his bloody fingers on the legs of his denims. "You done told me that you've heard about enough outta me about Dutch."

Arthur didn't have anything to say to that, so he just shoved himself to his feet and began pacing by the fire, shirtless, stitches only half finished. There were a million things that John thought of to say, none of which would help. Like that Bell had no reason to lie about knowing Dutch, since he couldn't have known it would mean anything to them. Or that Dutch had probably killed just about as many people in Blackwater as Bell did in Strawberry, if not more. Or that Bell was clearly a complete fucking _nutjob_ , and whether he knew Dutch or not, they should still turn him in, if not put a bullet in him right there.

"Siddown," he finally said, "and let me finish those stitches."

"Fine," Arthur huffed, dropping himself down right back where he started, "but then get some sleep. We're riding out at first light."

"For Strawberry?" John asked hopefully, but Arthur shook his head, turning to glare at Bell's unconscious form, his expression intense and conflicted.

"No. We're gonna go see Dutch."

*

John wasn't sure how Dutch and Arthur traded messages, but that time, Arthur simply posted a letter at Riggs Station. John didn't know what it said, but by the time they arrived in the Heartlands, three days later, Dutch was waiting for them, Javier Escuella once again by his side.

Bell hadn't appreciated the trip. They kept him gagged, for the most part—not that it actually kept him quiet, but at least it rendered him unintelligible.

Dutch looked as unruffled as always, even in the hot glare of the midday sun. Both John and Arthur had sweat tracing trails through the dust on their skin, but Dutch looked as If he'd just stepped out of the bath, hair slicked back under his perfectly blocked hat, the chain of his pocket watch gleaming gold against his red vest. Dutch always looked as if he didn't even live in the same world as the rest of them.

Dutch clapped Arthur on the shoulder in greeting, as he always seemed to do. "You said you found something of mine?"

"Might'a done," Arthur replied, noncommittal, as John pulled Bell off the back of his horse, cutting the ropes around his ankles so that he could shove the man towards the other two outlaws.

"You left some of your trash in Strawberry," John said, pulling Bell's head back by his hair so that Dutch could see his face. "Or at least, he says he's yours. Arthur reckons he's not your type."

Bell was practically shouting through the gag, but it was unnecessary—John had seen the flash of recognition in Dutch's eyes the minute he saw Bell's face. Arthur couldn't have missed it, either—he was suddenly tense, on edge, the way he always should have been around Dutch but never was.

"Ah, Mister Bell," Dutch drawled in a disappointed, chiding tone. "I'm afraid he is, in fact, one of mine."

John could see the tension in the line of Arthur's jaw. If it had been anyone but Dutch across from them, he would have expected Arthur's next move to be for his gun. "This feller killed a lot of folk that didn't need killin'," he told Dutch, his tone grave.

"Well, Micah can be a bit of a hothead," Dutch replied dismissively, "but I can assure you he has a heart of gold."

"Hothead _nothin'_ ," Arthur snapped back, "Strawberry jail in on the outskirts, he coulda gone straight into the woods and been gone. 'Stead he wandered through town and shot two dozen men. It was a _mess_ , Dutch."

Dutch gestured broadly. "Sometimes things simply get out of hand, Arthur. You know that. I'm not saying it's right," He added quickly, "but these things happen."

" _These things—_ " Arthur started to repeat, tone disbelieving, before he cut himself off with a deep breath. "He ain't right, Dutch. I know you do what you gotta do, but I _saw_ Strawberry. No one had to do that."

Dutch took his hand off Arthur's shoulder and placed it on Bell's. "I understand. Rest assured that Mister Bell and I will be having a long talk about this."

Several emotions flickered across Arthur's face, but the one that settled looked like resignation. "Right," he drawled, dryly, "you do that, Dutch. You _talk_."

John didn't take his hands off Bell until Arthur pulled him away by the elbow. John wasn't sure what expression was on his face, but whatever was there made Arthur shake his head with a warning look, pulling him bodily back to their horses.

"So we're just gonna let him go?" John hissed to him under his breath, turning over his shoulder to watch Javier sawing through the ropes at Bell's wrists. "Fifteen hundred dollars, two dozen dead men, and we're just gonna send him home to papa Dutch?"

"Yeah," Arthur sighed, and John found it hard to stay righteously indignant when Arthur sounded so _defeated_ , "I guess we are."


	3. Chapter Two, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John had never liked Dutch from the moment he met him, mostly because he didn't like the way Arthur acted around him, but it was their second meeting that pushed that dislike towards something more like hate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this closes out the game's chapter two storylines. Parts of this chapter were a bit emotionally exhausting and perhaps a bit too introspective, I'm going to be trying to insert a bit more action in the next parts. As an aside, my goal to celebrate this chapter is to try and leave reviews on all my favorite complete fic (I had to limit myself somehow, so it'll only be complete ones) so if you see me in your inbox a ton, that is why.

Dutch was everywhere, it seemed like. Not the man, but his influence—there was a distinct new air of lawlessness in New Hanover, people warier of strangers and quicker to put hands on their guns. Vicious brawls in the Valentine saloon, a train robbery in Scarlett Meadows, and the less said about Strawberry, the better. You'd think it would be booming business for bounty hunters, but you would be wrong—the tension meant that lawmen were extra suspicious of outsiders. In New Austin and West Elizabeth John and Arthur could leverage their reputation, but in New Hanover they didn't have the same kind of renown.

It wasn't that they were hurting for money, they lived cheaply and had few expenses, but Arthur was the type of man who needed something to _do_. He was not suited to leisure, he was a man designed by fate to live and die on horseback, a gun in his hand.

Not that John himself was all that different. He and Arthur were both destined to die with their boots on, he knew that. Hopefully it would be later rather than sooner, but New Hanover was dangerous just then. Leviticus Cornwall was hiring gunslingers left and right, all but flooding the state with armed hotheads, not to mention the ubiquitous Pinkerton detective agency. In theory they were on the same side of the law as the detectives and mercenaries, but they didn't seem to see it that way.

That being as it was, it was extra ironic when, upon seeing them at Smithfield's saloon in Valentine, Javier's chose to greet Arthur with a cheerful, "Hey, lawman!"

Arthur seemed extremely nonplussed, both by the greeting and the tone, and exchanged a perplexed glance with John, but he eventually tipped his hat to the other man an muttered something about not being a lawman.

"Close enough, eh, close enough!" Javier replied, clearly having been at the bar long enough that even someone like Arthur was his friend. "Dutch's pet lawman, that what Micah's been calling you. Thanks for that by the way," this last statement was dripping with sarcasm, "camp just wasn't the same with him gone."

"Keep your goddamn voice down!" Arthur hissed, stepping deep into Javier's space. "Are you telling me that Micah Bell has been running his mouth about me?"

"Only where Dutch can't hear him," Javier replied, and he must be drunker that John had first thought, because he seemed completely ignorant to the waves of danger coming off of Arthur. "Dutch thinks you're _useful_."

That description made John bristle, like Arthur was some tool Dutch could pull out when he needed, but Arthur seemed to let that part pass. "You and Bell better keep my name outta your mouths or I will shut them for you, Dutch be damned."

Javier held up his hands, one still holding a glass of whiskey, "Hey, settle down, lawman. We're all friends here, aren't we?"

" _No_ , we ain't." Arthur immediately replied. "Don't think you got some kinda pass from me because of Dutch. You make trouble for me I'll make trouble for you."

John could see the other patrons picking up on the tension and put a hand on Arthur's shoulder to pull him back slightly. "Let's just get gone," he said under his breath, "we don't wanna be seen with this feller anyway."

"Reckon we don't," Arthur agreed after a beat, "but you think on what I said, Escuella."

"Sure," Javier said affably, toasting Arthur with his drink, "I'll think good and hard about why I would bother to be afraid of Dutch's little pet lawman."

John already had one hand on Arthur's shoulder, he was quick enough to grab the other to stop him from lunging for Javier's throat. "We don't need this kinda attention, Arthur," he hissed in the other man's ear.

Arthur had a temper but ultimately, he was a rational man. He shrugged off John's hands and straightened his jacket. "You ask Dutch," he said, ominously, before he turned to leave, "if you should be afraid of me."

*

John had never liked Dutch from the moment he met him, mostly because he didn't like the way Arthur acted around him, but it was their second meeting that pushed that dislike towards something more like hate.

Eliza and Isaac had been gone a month, it had been three weeks since Dutch came to bring Arthur back in. John had feigned sleep, but he'd heard the whole conversation, feeling at least somewhat vindicated that Arthur's refusal was swift and unequivocally.

"If it's about the boy," Dutch cajoled," he would be perfectly welcome—"

"I ain't dragging John into that kinda life, even if he wanted to," Arthur replied without hesitation. "He'd just end up like me."

"Would that be such a bad thing?" Dutch pressed, the only thing he'd said that far that John agreed with. He could think of worse fates than following in Arthur's footsteps.

"Yeah, it would be," Arthur sighed, "unless you somehow think that all that's happened has nothing to do with who I am."

Honestly, John hadn't thought they'd see him again, after that. Arthur seemed content to believe that Dutch's empathy was genuine, but it seemed pretty clear to John that Dutch simply thought Arthur would come back now that the things he'd left for were gone. That if Eliza and Isaac were dead then that part of Arthur's life was dead too, and Dutch was the crook that would guide his little lost sheep back into the fold. When it was clear that wasn't going to happen, John expected Dutch to write them off and go on about his business, as he had in the previous years.

John underestimated him.

No, he came back barely three weeks later, polished as always, a bound man slung across the back of his horse with a green bandana shoved in his mouth. This wasn't an uncommon sight in New Austin, a bound man on horseback, but Dutch wasn't a bounty hunter and they weren't the law.

"The hell?" Arthur muttered before Dutch was in earshot, shooting John a baffled glance, and then Dutch was dismounting and pulling the man off his horse, letting him fall face-first into the dirt.

Dutch dragged the struggling man by the back of his collar right to the bottom steps of their porch, dropping him at a bemused Arthur's feet.

"… Am I supposed to know this feller?" He asked Dutch, cocking his head.

Dutch looked up at Arthur with an unreadable, tight-lipped expression, and pulled off the gag. "You tell him what you told me."

"Fuck you!" The man screeched, a distinctive Irish lilt to his voice.

Dutch grasped him by the hair, yanked his head back, and put the glinting tip of his belt knife right against the corner of his eye. "You tell him or I will make this very unpleasant for you."

The man twisted for a moment, panicked, then looked up at Arthur and blurted out, "It was Colm's orders! I had to!"

Arthur went very, very still. It reminded John of that moment when they'd noticed the busted-down door, the moment where something unthinkable was being thought of.

"Dutch," Arthur said, in that same dangerously even tone he'd used that day, "who is this man?"

The terrified man was babbling now, even as Dutch released him to stand, as if words might somehow save him. "You took four of his top men, he couldn't just ignore it! I was only gonna do the woman, but the brat had a _fucking gun_! I didn't have a choice!"

Sickly, John thought of him, Arthur and Isaac out in the woods, showing Isaac how to shoot cans like it was the most normal thing in the world for an eight year old boy.

"You didn't have a choice?" Arthur repeated, and John had never heard his voice sound so utterly _terrifying_. "You didn't have a _choice_?"

"Colm would have killed me!"

" _What do you think I'm going to do to you_?"

Horrifyingly, the man—boy, maybe, around the same age as John himself—began to cry. "I'm sorry! I— when Colm tells you do do something you _do_ it!"

"Jesus, Arthur," John breathed, his voice a mix of disgust and pity. The kid was bound hand and foot, utterly helpless, and despite his crimes, the whole scenario made John feel slightly sick.

"You always have a choice, son," Dutch said to the bound man, his boot grinding into the small of his back, and there seemed to John to be a sort of bloodthirstiness to his expression, an eagerness for the violence that Arthur was going to dish out. "Your choice was to run with Colm O'Driscoll."

Arthur drew his revolver, shaking off John's hand when he tried, halfheartedly, to stop him. "Tell you what, O'Driscoll," he said, as he crouched down over the boy and pressed the barrel of his gun into the soft part of his cheek, " _I'll_ give you a choice. I can shoot you here, or we can take you down to the sheriff, where they'll probably hang you."

"The sheriff!" The boy shouted instantly, still sobbing. "I'll tell him everything, I swear, just turn me in—"

Arthur nodded thoughtfully, his green eyes dark as coal. "I lied," he said darkly, "you don't have a choice," and shot him twice in the face.

Then he stood, walked into the house, and closed the door behind him.

John and Dutch stood there over the bleeding corpse, silent, for a long moment, Dutch looking down at the body in disdain, before John finally exploded. He took two steps and grabbed Dutch by his silk vest, shoving him up against the side of his horse. "Is that what you wanted?" He demanded. "To watch Arthur kill a helpless, crying _kid_ in cold blood?"

Dutch grabbed John at the wrists and shoved him off, stronger than he looked. "That 'kid' killed his wife and child."

"I _knew_ his wife and child!" John snapped back. "Did you?"

"No," Dutch said, "but I know Arthur, and I knew that he would want to make sure that this animal was taken care of."

"You _knew_ Arthur." John replied, incensed. "He ain't like you. He ain't a killer."

Dutch looked pointedly over John's shoulder at the disfigured corpse lying on the ground, blood still dripping into the dirt from the mess of its skull.

"Is that right?" He drawled.

*

They camped out the next few nights after their run in with Escuella, Valentine too crowded and too risky. John preferred sleeping rough, anyway. There were things that Arthur would let him get away with in the wilderness that he would never tolerate in town, things like John tucking his cold fingers into the back pockets of Arthur's trousers when they sat by the fire, John chuckling into his shoulder as Arthur grumbled. Arthur had a well-known allergy to affection, and getting him to accept anything like kindness was a bit like trying to pet a porcupine—if you didn't do it the exact right way, you were gonna get jabbed. Sometimes it literally came to holding on until he stopped fussin', which John did later that night, crawling into his bedroll and burying his nose into the collar of Arthur's shirt.

"Yer always fucking manhandling me," Arthur complained, even as he threw an arm around John's shoulders and drew his jacket tighter around them both.

"Your life is just fulla hardship," John muttered into his collarbone, already half asleep.

It was peaceful and boring, in a way their life hadn't been in weeks, months if he was honest, so it made perfect sense that when they finally stopped back in Valentine to look for bounties, they found a letter waiting at the hotel from Mary fuckin' Linton.

If there was one person that John could say he hated more than Dutch, it was Mary Linton. In a way it was worse, because he knew full well that she didn't really deserve it. Mary's only sin was not wanting to give up her family to marry an outlaw. Eliza had told John that Arthur left the life because of Isaac, and John was sure that was largely true, but it was also true that the the day he showed up at Eliza's with a wedding ring was only two weeks after Mary had given that ring back to him. Somehow, it seemed the biggest decision in Arthur's life was about proving something to Mary Linton.

Eliza knew that the ring had been Mary's—she was the one that told John the story. He'd never gotten the impression that she minded; Eliza was a practical woman. She took what she was offered, and anyway, she would have been the first to say that she and Arthur were not some great love story.

Arthur and Mary, they were a love story. John hadn't been there for it, obviously, but it was clear in the way that he talked about her, or, more truthfully, the way he _didn't_. It had become clear to John early on in their acquaintance that the things that were most important to Arthur were the ones he kept most closely guarded, and the things he knew about Mary Linton were all carefully inferred from what Arthur didn't say.

"You're not going, right?" John demanded, practically breathing down Arthur neck to read the letter over his shoulder. Arthur allowed it—he was a private man, but he didn't keep any secrets from John anymore.

"Of course I'm going," Arthur replied lightly. "She— well, it's not like we made any promises, but I don't forget about people. You know that."

Arthur Morgan and his goddamn loyalty, and always to people that didn't deserve it. "Then I'm coming with you."

"Fine, but you best be polite, boy," Arthur warned, sticking a finger in John's face like he was his mother. "Mary is a _lady_."

"If the _lady_ spent time around you, reckon she won't be too put off by me."

Arthur grimaced, looking away. "Yeah, well, she weren't around me for all that long."

"She sure wants to be around you now," John muttered under his breath.

Arthur rolled his eyes. "It ain't like that, and if you think you're going to be some kind of _chaperone_ , you can fuck off."

Of course, John couldn't admit that he wanted to come so that he could somehow _protect_ him from Mary. As if that were a thing that was even in his power. He was pretty sure you could fight a broken heart with a gun. "Maybe I just want to meet the famous Mary Linton, woman who stole a gunslinger's heart."

"That was a long time ago." Arthur dismissed. "She married some rich feller and I had—" Eliza's name stuck in his throat and he shook his head, sharply. "We was kids and I ain't looking to turn back the clock."

"Good," John replied, "because I might have a thing or two to say about that."

That was getting very close to another of those things they Didn't Talk About, especially not in town around strangers, but Arthur had been letting him get away with a lot lately, and let the comment pass. Anyway, it wasn't like Mary was John's competition because it wasn't like John was Arthur's _wife_ , and Mary was a married woman who'd had her chance and lost it.

Except she wasn't. She was a widow with soft eyes and soft hands who cooed to Arthur that _only_ he could help her. Still, John found the reality of Mary pretty underwhelming.

She was pretty, sure, and had probably been stunning in her youth, but John found himself comparing her in his mind to Eliza and noting all the ways that she came up short. Eliza had been a sturdy, frontier woman who had accepted Arthur but didn't need him, and Mary was exactly the opposite—someone who needed Arthur but couldn't accept him. Or couldn't then, though she seemed awful accepting now that her rich husband was dead and she needed a man's help.

So John was still a little sour about the whole thing, probably.

"I know it's probably not my place to ask," Mary said, later, when she was boarding a train with her wayward brother, "but … why did you leave that all behind for her, when you wouldn't for me?"

And that showed how little Mary really knew him, because he clearly did leave it for her—or not _for_ her, but _because_ of her. Isaac and Eliza hadn't appeared out of nowhere, but it wasn't until Mary Ginnis told him that she would never marry an outlaw that he saw that life as unsustainable.

He hadn't tried to change her mind. He was too proud. But it was clearly _because_ of her.

That wasn't what Arthur told her. All he told her was, "Tell me what answer you want and I'll say it, but it won't change anything."

John didn't want to change anything, anyway. Arthur left because of Mary, but he stayed out because of John.

*

They were actually fixing to leave Valentine, head out to Annesburg or Van Horn where the Pinkerton population might be diminished and the bounties more plentiful, when the gunfight broke out. They were on the opposite side of town, stocking up on provisions, and by the time they'd climbed up to the roof of the stable for a better view it already sounded like a war.

"It's gotta be Dutch," John growled, scanning the street through the scope of his rifle. "It's _always_ fucking _Dutch_."

"Be fair," Arthur said mildly, peering down through his binoculars with his shotgun propped up beside him, "In Strawberry it was Bell."

"Right, because Dutch had _nothing_ to do with that."

"I really love it when you bitch at me in the middle of a gunfight, John, it really—" He stopped abruptly, knuckles white from the grip he had on his binoculars, and huffed out a breath. John knew what he was going to say before he said it. "Shit. It is Dutch."

John aimed his scope up towards the center of town and there he was, him, Bell and Escuella, crouched behind a wagon that was being quickly eaten away by the gunfire. They were shielded from the sheriff but totally exposed from John's vantage, and John knew his own skills—he could make the shot.

"Arthur," he said, his tone urgent, wheedling, "just let me take care of this right here. No one else needs to die."

Almost before he finished speaking Arthur was tackling him to the roof, knocking John's head hard against the wood, and wrenching his rifle away to toss out of the way. John rolled onto his side, dazed from the hit to his head and the noise of the gunfight, and watched blearily as Arthur pressed his back up against the roof wall, legs sprawled out in front of him, and buried his face in his hands. They didn't move until the sound of gunfire finally trailed out of town, accompanied by the sound of hoofbeats.

John wondered if he would let half a town die if it meant keeping Arthur alive. He wasn't sure he wanted to be in a position to find out.

 


	4. Chapter Three, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a doozy, and I apologize in advance for the semi-cliffhanger, but it didn't feel right for the pacing I'm going for to break in a different place. I'll endeavor to get the next chapter out as quickly as possible, but I don't like to publish anything under about 3500 words, it feels too disjointed, to me.
> 
> On another note, I know in the first few chapters I was not great at responding to reviews. I've been out the writing game awhile and I'm sort of feeling my way back into fandom, but I'm trying to do better, so please do leave comments, [Arthur voice] It would mean a lot to me [/Arthur voice].

They had to walk through Valentine to get back to their horses. It was that or stay, and they were not going to stay. They tried to avoid the townsfolk, women wailing in the streets over the bodies of their dead husbands, their sons, but they couldn't avoid Sheriff Malloy, who was on the porch of his office, right where they'd hitched their horses. He was bleeding from the temple and right arm, both minor wounds, and leaning over the body of one of his deputies, his fingers pressed against the fallen man's wrist. He looked up as they approached, his face grim.

"Morgans," he said, sounding slightly surprised despite the grimness of his tone. "I didn't know you were in town."

"Wish we weren't," John replied when Arthur said nothing, and it was true enough.

Malloy sighed, and set his deputy's limp wrist onto his chest. "Don't we all right now. This is—" he looked down the main street of Valentine and shuddered, reaching up to grip the wound on his arm. "You been in the war? No, nevermind, reckon you ain't old enough."

"Yeah," John said softly, "I guess it woulda been something like this."

"Man's inhumanity to man." Malloy sighed.

"Makes countless thousands mourn." Arthur finished, to John's surprise. "Robert Burns wrote that."

Malloy considered him for a long moment. "Never took you for a learned man, Mister Morgan."

"I ain't," Arthur acknowledged easily, "but the man who taught me to read—he was. Sort of. Poetry and literature and that."

"Must have been a Scotsman, if he had you reading Burns," Malloy said absently, and Arthur chuckled under his breath without any real humor.

"Nah, I think he was Dutch."

"Well," Malloy said after a pause, "you boys best get out of here. Nothing that you can do now."

It was strange to be given permission, but they weren't going to question it. They mounted up and rode out with all due speed, stopping only once daylight faded. Arthur was silent as they set camp—not unusual, but this silence was heavy, weighted with John's disapproval and Arthur's guilt. John wasn't sure how he expected it to end, but it certainly wasn't with Arthur saying, "I want to tell you a story. I'm not really sure where to start."

'At the beginning', John didn't say. It was too glib for the moment, too superficially true. "What's it about?" He asked instead, as though he didn't know the answer.

Arthur chuckled, the same humorless laugh he had given the sheriff, and shook his head. "Me."

A lie, obviously. It was clearly going to be about Dutch. Then again, maybe in this case they were one and the same.

"I'll listen to whatever you want to tell me," John said slowly, "but I ain't no priest to forgive you your sins."

"I don't think Christ himself could help me at this point. No, that's not what this is."

"All right, then," John said, cocking his head, "so tell me about you, Arthur Morgan."

Arthur cleared his throat and looked away, uncomfortable. "I ever tell you how my father died? He got into a shootout with the law. He was a dumb, petty thief and they weren't even gonna hang him, just lock him up again, but instead of just surrendering he tells them that if they don't let him go he's gonna shoot his kid. I was _thirteen years old_ and my father put a gun to my head to save his own skin. But he was drunk—he was always drunk—so I got away from 'im and had a front row seat to Johnny Law fillin' him full of holes."

"Jesus," John breathed, and Arthur glanced back at him, eyes hard.

"Don't misunderstand me," he said, "the only thing I'm sorry about is that I didn't get to shoot him myself, the miserable bastard. This—" he took off his hat, holding it up for John to see, "was his. See here?" He stuck his finger through a bullet hole in the brim, near the crown, and wiggled it in illustration, "I reckon this was the one that killed him."

"That's pretty fucking morbid, Arthur." John said, slightly disturbed.

"Yeah, well," Arthur shrugged, putting the hat his father _died_ in back on his head, _Jesus_. "Town wanted my father's brother to take me in, but he just sold my Mama's house and took himself and the money somewhere up north without even burying my Pa. _That_ was my blood kin, that's what they did for me. State tried to put me in an orphanage so I ran, spent two years sleeping in haylofts and back alleys—reckon _you_ know how it was—tryin' to steal enough to keep myself alive. Finally got caught and thrown into jail when I was fifteen, and you can guess who was in the cell across from me."

"Wait," John interrupted, "you met Dutch in _jail_?"

Arthur chuckled at that, genuinely. "Yeah, not the most heroic story, is it? So there I was, not even old enough to shave, skinny as a rat, nothing but the clothes on my back to my name, wonderin' if I was gonna hang over a couple'a chickens, and Dutch? He looks me over and asks me, through prison bars, mind, what I was planning to do with my life. Like I actually had any control over that. Well, I told him to mind his own fuckin' business, of course, because I thought I was tough. And then he just … he talked to me. You been on the run, John—how often did anyone ever talk to you like you was a human being?"

"Reckon you were the first in a long while," John agreed, thoughtful.

"Right. So … I don't know. Maybe I was just a captive audience, maybe he saw something in me. Maybe he was just bored. But the stuff he said, about civilization, about the law and society—it made sense to me. The world didn't want us—it certainly didn't want me—so why should we have to follow its rules? Dutch is … well, you've heard him talk. He makes you _believe_."

Dutch was a charismatic man, sure, but John thought it was less what Dutch had said than the fact that he had bothered to say it. John had been that scared kid desperate for connection. If Arthur had tried to sell him on some bullshit philosophy, he probably would've bought it, so long as it meant being a part of something.

"When Hosea came to bust him out he stood in front of the door to my cell and asked me again, what I was planning to do with my life. I said I was going to go with him. And I did. For ten years, I did. I sweated, fought and bled for that man, and he did the same for me. He's more my family than any of those fuckers that shared my blood, and that means something to me."

"You said this weren't about forgiveness," John replied, "but it sounds an awful lot like you want me to absolve you of Dutch's sins."

"I'm long past absolution," Arthur said, shaking his head. "I just … want you to _understand_."

John huffed, annoyed. This whole story, the life and times of Arthur Morgan, it wasn't about sharing something with John. It was about _defending Dutch_ , and even though John had _known_ it would be it still left him feeling disappointed. "I _understand_ loyalty just _fine_ , Arthur. But the Dutch you was just talking about and the man that just murdered half a town don't sound much to me like the same person."

To his surprise, Arthur didn't argue. "No, you're right about that. You know, sometimes I see my reflection and I don't recognize myself, neither."

There was silence for a long moment, both of them looking at the fire and not at each other, until John signed and shook his head. "What do you want me to say, Arthur? I'm not going to tell you that Dutch is a good man, because I don't believe it. I'd tell you that you ain't a bad man but I know you don't want to hear it."

Arthur's next words were gritted out between clenched teeth like they were being torn from him, like he was being _gutted_. "You are the only good thing I have left, so just don't—"

He didn't finish, but it clicked. Not, 'don't leave', because he had to know John wouldn't.

 _Don't make me choose_.

*

With the Van der Lindes gone, the O'Driscolls all but took over New Hanover. Why wouldn't they? Strawberry and Valentine were doth decimated by Dutch's boys. Strawberry still had no sheriff, and Malloy in Valentine had no deputies. The state was properly lawless, bounty hunters like John and Arthur about the only stopgap measure available. Sure, The Pinkertons were still there, and numerous, but they were paid by Cornwall and therefore only addressed his concerns, and his concern was _Dutch_ , not O'Driscoll. John lost track of the number of men in green bandanas he had slung across his horse in the following month, but somehow there never seemed to be less of them. Say what you would about Dutch (and John had _plenty_ to say) but at least he didn't treat his folk like they were disposable.

Cockroaches, Arthur called them. He always claimed not to value revenge but he certainly held a righteous grudge against the O'Driscolls, and they held one right back at him. The older fellers they picked up knew him by name: Arthur Morgan. Van der Linde's lapdog. Gunslinger Gone Good, sneered as if it were an insult.

(How's your wife, one had asked. He'd barely made it back to the sheriff alive.)

Funnily enough, even with all that, it wasn't until he was being dragged out of their tent that it occurred to John that Colm wasn't above directly targeting the law.

They should have set a watch, of course, but both John and Arthur were light sleepers by necessity, and they were less than an hour from Valentine, besides. Arthur slept with his gunbelt beside his hand and John slept beside Arthur, and none of that changed the fact that half a dozen O'Driscolls caught them asleep before either could grab the guns.

They could have shot both John and Arthur in their sleep, they'd had the drop on them and were all armed, but instead John had woken to two men yanking him bodily out of the tent by his ankles, even as other hands toppled the canvas lean-to over top of a cursing Arthur. It only took him a second to flail himself free, but that was enough time for three O'Driscolls to have John pinned, snarling, against the rocky ground, a gun against the back of his head.

God, he hated needing to be saved.

Arthur had both his guns up and aimed, crouched in their collapsed tent, but he only had two hands and there were six men, one of which was kneeling with one knee between John's shoulder blades, the barrel of his revolver right up against the base of John's skull. "I would be very careful, Mister Morgan," the man over John drawled, "if you value the brains in your little cocksucker's head."

"Who you calling a cocksucker, cocksucker?" John grunted into the dirt, twisting away from the answering blow to his temple.

Arthur got a particular kind of way in a gunfight, still like a snake, coiled energy waiting to strike. He rose to his feet, slow and deliberate, pointing his guns towards the ground. "Well I ain't been shot," he said, nonchalant as always when staring down a loaded gun, "so I take it Colm wants something outta me other than my life."

"You're a smart man, Morgan," the same O'Driscoll smirked. "Now be a good boy and let my friends get you all trussed up for him."

"Yeah, reckon I'll decline," Arthur drawled in response, still with that misleading stillness. "Give Colm all my best, though."

The spokesman made a thoughtful hum, and then the O'Driscoll holding down John's left hand put a knee just below his elbow and snapped his arm like kindling.

He didn't remember screaming, but the ringing in his ears and the panic in Arthur's voice suggested that he had. "Christ, fuck, _stop,_ " Arthur hissed, and through vision pin-pricked with pain, John watched Arthur drop both guns right to the ground.

"Like I said," the spokesman crowed, "a smart man. Now you behave yourself and we'll leave your friend here to be picked up by the next do-gooder as happens by. You act up and we'll leave him for the vultures."

One couldn't call Arthur's surrender _docile—_ every line of his body was visibly tense, now less a snake than a leashed cur at the end of its lead—but let himself be shoved to his knees, his hands and ankles bound tight. They secured John the same way, mindless of the arm they had just broken, but added for him a gag and a blindfold. Before his vision was obscured he saw Arthur being slung across the back of a horse, twisting against the ropes.

"Wait until we're out a ways," the spokesman murmured under his breath to the man on his right, "then shoot the horses and the other one."

Jerking violently against the ropes made John's vision white out with pain, the bones in his arm grinding together unnaturally, and he thought that perhaps he lost some time, because the sound of hoofbeats was already distant when he finished gasping. The first gunshot was accompanied by an immensely heavy thud and Boadicea's shrieks, and John twisted again against the ropes, gritting his teeth around the gag, because god _damn_ if he was going to die in the dirt while Colm O'Driscoll had Arthur—

There was a thick, wet noise, a softer thud, and then silence. When John finally worked the blindfold up onto his forehead he saw Old Boy dead on the ground, Boadicea nosing at him gently, and an O'Driscoll with his head mashed flat lying underneath Boadicea's front hooves.

Just for a moment, John let himself collapse limply against the dirt. "Good girl," John cooed, unintelligible through the gag, but he reckoned it was the thought that counted.

*

John wasn't sure how long it took work his way out of the bonds and pull himself, one-handed, onto Boadicea's back, but it was midday by the time he limped into the Sheriff's office in Valentine, wrists rubbed raw from the rope, left arm visible crooked, mouth bruised at the corners from the gag and face bloody from the rocky dirt.

Malloy was on his feet before John had finished stumbling through the door, catching him by the shoulders as if he might hit the ground. "Jesus Christ, Morgan, what the hell happened to you?"

"O'Driscolls," John grunted through gritted teeth. "They—"

"No, nevermind," Malloy cut him off, reaching for his hat as he guided John back towards the door, "you can tell me at the surgery."

"Wait, wait," John gripped back at the sheriff with his good arm, "it's Arthur. They took him."

" _Took_ him?" Malloy repeated, confused. "What would the O'Driscolls want with your brother?"

There were dozens of potential answers to that, but which ones were true and which ones were even safe to tell the law, John wasn't sure. "The number of their boys we brought in ain't reason enough?"

"To _kill_ you, sure." Malloy replied, brow furrowed.

"Who the hell cares _why_ ," John snapped, "we have to find him. You—you have to help me."

" _You_ have to get that arm seen to, or you won't be any good to anyone," Malloy countered, guiding him back out onto the boardwalk. "Doc Calloway is the best in— well, he can set a broken bone just fine."

"Are you even fucking _listening_ to me?"

"I'm listening to you, Morgan," Malloy replied calmly. "Do you have any idea where they took him?"

"… No," John admitted after a moment. Malloy shook his head with a sigh as he pushed John through the door of the doctor's office next door.

"Do you know which direction they rode?"

"No, they blindfolded me."

Malloy pushed him down into a chair and waved the doctor over, the sheriff's face grim. He stared down at John for long moment, hands on his hips, before he spoke in a gentle, almost apologetic tone. "Morgan, right now the only law in this town is me and two green as grass boys up from Blackwater. Respectfully, I don't have the men to spare to ride all over God's green earth for a man who's like as not already dead."

John snarled, "We done cleaned up a hell of a lotta trash from your town, you _owe_ us."

"Valentine is grateful to you, but what you did, you did for money, and you were paid," Malloy responded calmly.

John almost lunged out of the chair, would have if the doctor hadn't grabbed his broken arm and pinned it to the arm of the chair, and his snarl turned into a pained moan. "You—you son of a—"

"Now just calm down, Morgan," Malloy placated, laying his hand on John's opposite shoulder in a way that made John think angrily of Dutch. "I can't send my men but there might be something else. Let me talk to some people."

Malloy came back just as the doctor was finishing the splint on John's arm, and through the door behind him walked Agent Andrew fucking Milton.

John froze, hands gripping the armrests of the doctor's chair hard enough that his knuckles were white, teeth gritted hard enough to creak. "What," he scraped out, "is _he_ doing here?"

Malloy was not an idiot—he had to know that bounty hunters and Pinkertons were a sort of natural enemies, but he had no way to know the particular history John had with them. "There are more Pinkertons in New Hanover right now than there are lawmen, Morgan. This man can help you find your brother."

" _This man_ wants Arthur on a _gallows_."

"Now now, Mister … _Morgan_ ," Milton drawled, his emphasis on the name filled with mean-spirited humor, "you know that isn't quite true. Gentlemen," he nodded to the doctor and sheriff as he took off his hat, "could you give us a bit of privacy? This is something of a business discussion."

Because Pinkertons didn't do anything for free any more than bounty hunters did. "I ain't got no business to discuss with you," John said, shoving himself to his feet as if to leave, but the doc and Malloy beat him to it. Milton waited until the door shut behind them turn his gaze back to John.

"Sheriff Malloy tells me that your 'brother' has had a run in with the O'Driscoll gang, that they spirited him off somewhere," he said, in that paced, almost mocking tone he always seemed to use. "Now that's a funny coincidence, because I've recently had an overture from Colm O'Driscoll. He wanted to know what the Pinkertons would give him in exchange for Dutch Van der Linde."

John knew he had to tread carefully here, but it was not his forte. "Arthur has nothing to do with Dutch anymore."

"Well, I don't believe that, and it seems like the O'Driscolls don't either. Now, I'm not being paid to worry about the well-being Arthur Morgan. I only want Dutch, and I'm willing to make a deal to get him. I don't much care if I get him from Morgan, from you, or from Colm O'Driscoll." Milton cocked his head at John and looked at him with the cold gaze of a predator. "Convince me, John, to make a deal with you instead of Colm O'Driscoll, and I will do everything I can to ensure that Arthur Morgan is returned to you in the best possible condition."

"I don't know where Dutch is," John said quickly, "but Arthur might, if you find him."

Milton tsked, shaking his head. "We both know that Arthur Morgan would never deal with me, John. He would never tell his secrets to a … what was it? _Rich man's toy_. This offer is for _you._ Your freedom, and Morgan's, in exchange for Dutch. I'll even give you your half of the deal in advance."

And god help him, he was tempted. What did he owe Dutch, after all? Nothing but a shitload of strife, what seemed like every real fight he and Arthur had ever had, and every bit of Arthur's fucked up headspace.

But then he thought of Arthur, teeth clenched, almost begging, " _so just don't—_ " and he met Milton's gaze with a glare.

"Well I guess you called my bluff," he spat, "because Arthur wouldn't actually know where Dutch is anyway."

Boadicea was waiting for him outside the sheriff's office, John's saddlebags alongside Arthur's, and John thought for a long moment about Arthur knowing where to find Dutch, about Arthur posting a letter about Bell and Dutch being right where he was expected not three days later. He thought about them riding out of Blackwater months ago and finding Dutch right where they expected him at Riggs station.

When he dug into Arthur's saddlebag he found a letter sent only two weeks ago from Rhodes, talking about the wonderful fishing at Clemens Point, and signed Tacitus Kilgore.

It was an act of desperation, but Malloy had his obligations to his town, and Milton wanted a pound of flesh that wasn't John's to give. John swallowed down the humiliation, and the anger, and the outright _hate_ , and got down on his metaphorical knees in front of Dutch fucking Van der Linde. Every eye and gun in Clemens Point was on him, and he bowed his head and said, "Arthur needs— … _I_ … need your help."

Dutch gave him a long, level look, unreadable, and then—

Then he helped him.

Dutch Van der Linde, who sheltered murderers, who killed whole towns, who had twisted Arthur up in knots that John had spent years trying to undo, nodded, dropped a hand on John's shoulder in the same way he always did to Arthur, and said, completely sincere, "I would never allow for any harm to come to Arthur."

 


	5. Chapter Three, Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What to say about this chapter? It's pretty sedentary--I wanted to try to start establishing the kind of relationships that John is going to have with the camp, and his impressions of the some of the characters that he'd never met, but this really ended up mostly being about John and Dutch, and I'm okay with that.
> 
> I do want to remind everyone that John is an unreliable narrator, so some of his assessments of his and other's motives are not necessarily accurate. They reflect what John _feels_ to be true, not necessarily what is.

Dutch sent four riders out at first light, after showing them an uncannily accurate portrait of Arthur that Hosea had drawn beforehand. It was almost as if ... _fuck,_ it was almost as if Dutch actually cared about Arthur, too. As if he wanted Arthur safe as much as John did.

After, Dutch introduced John around the camp like he was an invited guest. There were some grumblings among the remaining menfolk, but Dutch's blessing was apparently a trump card, and it wasn't until Dutch was gregariously re-introducing him to Micah Bell, using John's full, legal name, that he realized—he wasn't being introduced, he was being _incriminated_. Dutch wanted John to damn well know that the price for his help was every member of that camp knowing his name and face.

"Oh, the pet lawman's pet," Micah had smirked, and despite what Javier had told them months ago, he seemed perfectly comfortable to say it right in front of Dutch. "Hear you misplaced your master."

"Hear you misplaced your balls," John snapped back, completely without Bell's fake-jovial tone. "Maybe they fell off when I had you slung across the back of my horse like a sack of _potatoes._ "

"Big talk from the little boy that had to run to Dutch to help him find his _Daddy_."

"Enough, Micah," Dutch intervened, before it could escalate further. "Young Mister Marston here did us a service in informing us of my _dear friend_ 's predicament. You will show him the civility of which I know you are capable."

"Of _course,_ Dutch," Micah replied, and John was astonished that Dutch seemed completely oblivious to the patronizing undertone. "Any friend of yours is a friend of mine."

As Micah walked away, John looked at Dutch out of the corner of his eyes and asked, dubiously, "A _service_?"

"Don't mistake me, son," Dutch replied, hand on John's shoulder, "I would bleed myself dry for Arthur, as he would for me. But _you_ are not Arthur. When you ask something of me I will ask for something in return."

John had known that coming to Dutch was playing dice with the devil. He was prepared to pay the costs. "I pay my debts," he said, evenly, "and we both know that Arthur would never forgive me if I double crossed you."

"True enough!" Dutch agreed, patting John on the shoulder. "I'm glad we understand each other."

One of the camp women waved him down when Dutch released him—unlike the men, the camp women seemed more curious than wary, and had been whispering behind his back since he arrived.

"Miss Grimshaw said we're to give you a tent," the woman told him, holding out a bundle of fabric. She held onto it for a moment after he reached to take it, cocking her head. "The boys are saying that you're a lawman."

"Bounty hunter," John corrected tersely, "not lawman."

"Pretty much the same thing to a gang of outlaws. Just about every man here is worth something."

"I ain't here for that."

"So you ain't," she allowed, letting go of the bundled tent, "but your type done caused us a lotta grief over the years."

John was exhausted. He hadn't slept in something like two days, not since he was jerked awake by an O'Driscoll in the middle of the night. He'd spent nearly all of that time on horseback, Boadicea seeming to be pushing herself just as hard as John was. He ached everywhere, and his broken arm felt like it was on _fire_ , not having appreciated the bumpy ride. He was surrounded by folk that would be happy to shoot him dead, protected only by the good will of a man he hated, and he was still barely closer to finding Arthur, if he was even still alive. He didn't know what this woman was getting at, but he knew he didn't have the energy for it.

"Why don't you just tell me what you want out of me?"

"All I want is to know that this ain't gonna turn around and bite us in the back. _You can't trust lawmen_."

He looked at her with bleary eyes, thinking about Malloy, and Milton, and how little of a shit either of them seemed to give about Arthur. "Yeah," he agreed lowly, "why do you think I'm here?"

*

Four nights later it was the same woman, Abigail, who shook him awake in his tent on the lake shore. "They found your friend. Dutch and Hosea have him by Strauss's wagon."

It was the middle of the night, and it took John a second or two of blinking at her blearily before the words registered. Then he was shoving his feet into his boots without bothering with trousers. "Strauss's—which is that?" It was a decently small camp, and he could probably have figured it out on his own, but the idea of delaying even a moment made John's gut churn.

"'S where we keep the medicines—c'mon, I'll show you."

At some point during the days he had been confined to the camp the womenfolk had decided that John was some sort of poor unfortunate, and taken to trying to _comfort_ him. Abigail was the only one that treated him with a suspicious standoffishness, a well deserved wariness, and he by far preferred it. Abigail at least didn't look at him like he was a lost puppy that Dutch had taken in out of the goodness of his heart. Even now she just calmly pointed him towards the proper wagon, cinching her shawl closer around her shoulders, and told him, matter-of-fact, "He looked to be in a bad way."

That seemed to be something of an understatement.

John had seen Arthur injured on many occasions—it was a risk of the job—but they both kept kit in their saddlebags: needle and thread, cheap, strong moonshine, clean bandages. Arthur even kept a bottle of laudanum, though he was always hesitant to use it. The hole in Arthur's shoulder right then, increasingly more exposed as Hosea unwound the makeshift binding over it, had clearly seen no care at all. It had been allowed to _fester_ , dark black-purple spreading out from the oozing wound like a starburst. When John got close enough he could _smell_ it, foul and rotten like the grave.

Even with that, Arthur seemed to be weakly resisting Dutch and Hosea's efforts at medical care, pushing at Hosea's hands with his right hand even as Dutch pinned his left arm to the ground, hands framing the injury and holding it immobile.

John scrambled to his knees across from Hosea, grabbing Arthur's flailing right hand and pulling it away from his shoulder. Arthur's eyes were open but completely unfocused, bright with fever, and the hand John held felt like it was burning, hot and dry.

"What— where—" John wasn't sure what question he really wanted to ask, but Dutch answered anyway.

"Charles found him out by Twin Stack Pass, on horseback, if you can believe it," he huffed, sounding almost proud.

"Reckon he was looking for you, son," Hosea added, glancing up at John for the briefest of moments. "You were camped out that way, didn't you say?"

"Shoulda looked for a fucking doctor, Christ," John muttered under his breath, brushing his free hand across Arthur's forehead. The skin was much, much too hot. Dumbly, John repeated the obvious fact aloud, "He's really hot."

"We'll handle it," Dutch said distractedly, leaning down harder on Arthur's shoulder as Hosea started to pack the wound with some kind of yellow-green poultice. Arthur groaned, trying to wrest his right hand away from John's, left hand clawing at the bedroll under him, heels churning up the dirt. Between the pain and John babbling mindless, panicked platitudes he finally seemed to regain a little bit of focus, blinking up at the faces above him blearily.

"… J'hn?" He said after a long moment, slurring badly, and John barked out a laugh, quick and loud, because it was that or cry.

"Yeah. Yeah, I gotchu. We're safe, all right?" Not that John really believed that himself, but at least Dutch probably wouldn't harm _Arthur_.

It took Arthur a good few seconds to process that, staring at John through squinted eyes, looking almost _suspicious_. "You … yer arm," he said finally, and John wanted to _shake_ him. He'd been held captive for something like a week, he was hot as a furnace, his shoulder was rotting off, and he was worried about John's stupid broken arm—

"You're a goddamn fool," John told him, vehemently, before cupping his face in both hands and kissing him. He could taste blood on Arthur's mouth, and the hand that settled on the back of his neck was weak and too-warm, and if Arthur was in his right mind he probably would have been shoved away by now (because it's _private_ , Arthur would say, but John could translate that to _shameful_ and _secret_ ), but at that moment it seemed like the perfect idea, because Arthur was alive and he _could_.

"Well now," Dutch drawled, and John jerked back, startled, scowling at his amused tone, "a number of things are suddenly becoming clearer to me."

*

John, when he was seventeen or so, had asked Eliza why she and Arthur didn't share a bed. The answer had been as unsatisfying as it was honest.

"Arthur … he ain't like that, I guess," she said, thoughtful. "Not … touchy. I been knowing him a while now, and I honest think no one ever showed him _how_."

"To … touch people?" John said dubiously, but Eliza nodded.

"I mean, folk have to learn it somewhere, right? Reckon that daddy of his wasn't so much patting him on the back as slapping him in the face. He ain't the type to do that but maybe he don't rightly know how to do anything else, neither."

John thought about that, but to him, it didn't quite fit. Arthur touched people plenty—clapping John on the shoulder, hoisting Isaac up onto his horse and ruffling his hair, even pecking Eliza on the cheek when he was feeling particularly effusive. He didn't kiss Eliza but he figured that was more to do with how they didn't sleep together either, their marriage bed chaste as a cloister, especially since Arthur was never in it. There was also the fact:

"But you have Isaac?"

Eliza gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Now I _know_ you ain't askin' me how I got Arthur Morgan into bed."

"I ain't!" John yelped, instantly, even though he sort of was. "It just—you said 'touching', and ..."

Eliza gave him that narrow, suspicious look for another few seconds, then turned her gaze back to the mending in her lap. "Arthur is how he is, but its also the case that no man is an island. And," she added, almost as an afterthought, "we was young and really drunk. You wanna know more, reckon you can ask him."

That sounded like a _great_ conversation to have. _Hey Arthur, how come you never sleep with your wife?_

He couldn't get it off his mind, though, and finally blurted out over a campfire several nights later, "You and Eliza don't much act like a married couple."

Arthur was eating beans straight out of the can and didn't even look up, just gave an uninterested grunt and muttered, "How do married folk act, then?"

"Well, I guess they share a bed."

"Yeah, well, those folk live under the same roof for more than a few days at a time," Arthur replied. "Ain't fair for me to go around disrupting everything when I'm on the trail more often than I'm there."

John cocked his head, some sort of vague suspicion, some insight, creeping up on him. "… don't you want to?"

"Don't matter what I want," Arthur replied without any real emotion, a simple statement of fact, and that, that was _it._ It wasn't that Eliza was wrong, but she was missing the crucial part—not knowing how to accept something wasn't the same as not _wanting_ it. Arthur had clearly thought out what he thought was best for Eliza and Isaac, and his own wants featured _nowhere_.

It shouldn't have been a revelation, because John had already learned that Arthur was the sort that wouldn't bleed on other people, but he'd put it up to stoicism, independence. Arthur was a big, tough gunslinger, so of course when he got hurt he would just rub some dirt on it and act like it was nothing.

And apparently, if he wanted a lover's touch or a body in his bed at night, he would just rub some dirt on that, too.

*

If John hadn't already been in such a precarious position, he might have worried more about what Dutch knew, or thought he knew, about John and Arthur. As it was, Dutch already had John over a proverbial barrel, and whatever he decided to do with his new information wasn't going to change anything overmuch. Maybe Dutch watched him more closely, but it would have been hard to notice, considering how closely he'd been being watched already. Anyway, John had much more important things on his mind.

He spent the first day and night without leaving his spot by Arthur's right shoulder. Susan Grimshaw brought him stew at midday and clucked over Arthur maternally, calling him a 'dear boy'—apparently she had known him, too, back in the day. There was a part of him that wanted to ask about young Arthur, the part of Arthur's life that he knew so little about, but—well, the fact was that Arthur never talked about it, but John also never _asked_. If he did, it was entirely possible that Arthur would tell him whatever he wanted to know, because Arthur didn't keep secrets from John.

Or, John had thought he didn't. He thought back to the letter from Dutch in Arthur's saddlebag, keeping Arthur up to date on the gang's movements, and wondered if that rightly fell under 'secrets' or 'things we Don't Talk About'. Perhaps even having the categories separate in his head was strange.

Dutch stopped by a moment, not staying long since Arthur was still mostly incoherent. He did bring John a book by Evelyn Miller, asking, with overdone solicitousness, if he knew how to read.

"Of course I do," John snapped back, not taking the book, " _Arthur_ taught me."

Dutch replied, with a smug-sounding hum, "And I taught him. Interesting how life repeats, isn't it?"

So Dutch might have won that one. (John wasn't going to pretend that it wasn't some kind of tug of war, with Arthur as the rope.)

The other menfolk mostly ignored them, although Javier did stumble over shortly after sundown to offer John a beer, and a painfully young colored boy called Lenny stopped to offer him the same Evelyn Miller book that Dutch had. (John accepted it from him, because he offered it so fucking sincerely.)

In contrast, the women kept coming by in regular intervals. There was something about their curiosity that made him think him and Arthur's _novelty_ was the main draw. From what he had seen in the days he'd been there, being a woman outlaw wasn't all that different from being a woman homesteader. Laundry, mending, cooking—in other words, repetitive, boring shit. Now they had a half-dead ex-outlaw and his bounty hunting partner squatting in their camp, and they seemed determined to wring as much gossip out of it as possible.

Or, most of them did—Abigail mostly kept her distance, and John understood why when he realized that the little boy running around the camp belonged to her. There was also another woman, blonde, who wore trousers and carried a gun, that kept eyeing them keenly but never came close until after all the menfolk had turned in for the night.

"Heard Dutch say the O'Driscolls did this to your friend," she told him, not a question, when she crouched down across from him. The pistol in her holster was new but not unused, and there was a long scab along the line of her jaw that looked an awful lot like a healing bullet graze.

There was something in her tone that gave her away—John looked up from the compress he had pressed to Arthur's forehead, cocking his head. "You got a bone to pick with them?"

She pursed her lips a long moment, thoughtful. "They made me a widow," she said finally, "and forced me into the arms of this here band of degenerates."

John huffed out something that wasn't quite a laugh. "Sounds like we got a lot in common." Her gaze turned keen in a flash, and John realized a moment too late what he'd said—she'd said 'widow', and there John was, tending to Arthur like a devoted wife. "Uh, I meant—his wife and son. O'Driscolls killed 'em, years back now."

" _Jesus_ ," she breathed, looking down at Arthur's feverish face with a sort of astonished empathy, before her eyes went hard again and she looked back to John. "Sadie Adler," she introduced, sticking out a hand for John to shake, her grip almost painfully firm. " _Missus_ Adler, if you please."

"John Marston," reaching reflexively for the hat he wasn't wearing, still in nothing but a union suit and boots. "He's Arthur Morgan."

"I know," she said wryly, because Dutch had made sure that everyone knew. "Listen—if you decide to go after 'em when your man's better, you let me know." She put a hand on the butt of her pistol almost absently, her eyes fiery with promise. "I'll be after 'em either way, but many guns make light work."

John had never met a female gunslinger—even Annie Oakley wore a dress and shot targets, not men. Still, he never questioned for a second that she meant it. Somehow her being a woman made her _more_ intimidating—how tough would you have to be to live that life while every man around you looked down their nose at you?

Still … "We ain't outlaws, ma'am. When we go after Colm O'Driscoll, it'll be to see him hanged proper by the law." John hoped that was the case, at least. He could still remembered the look on Arthur's face after Dutch had brought them Eliza's killer. Shooting that poor son of a bitch hadn't done anything good for Arthur.

Surprisingly, she seemed to accept that, nodding slightly as she stood. "Well, if you get him first, be sure to invite me," she said, tucking her thumbs into her gunbelt, the leather new and supple. "I want a front row seat."

*

Dutch brought John a cup of coffee in the morning and crouched down beside Arthur, brushing his hair back off his sweating brow like a concerned father. Dutch's hands on Arthur always riled John something fierce, but they were in his camp, surrounded by his men, so John just gritted his teeth and sipped his coffee.

"Did Arthur ever tell you how he and I met?" Dutch asked him after a long silence, his hand still in Arthur's hair, his gaze on John curious, assessing.

Arthur had, of course, right after they left Valentine. Right after Arthur had, completely unknown to Dutch, saved Dutch from John's bullet. A tale Arthur had said was about him but was actually about Dutch, because _everything_ was about Dutch.

John didn't say that. He said, mildly, "Why don't you tell me?"

So he did—Dutch spun one of the most dramatic gunslinger stories John had ever heard. Arthur, up on a gallows, noose around his neck, ready to be hung. Dutch in the crowd, his heart going out to this helpless child, a victim of society's laws. A gunshot, severing the noose from the crossbeam at the last possible moment, Arthur falling straight through the trapdoor, shaken but unharmed. Dutch was just getting the part where he pulled off the hood and got his first look at the face of the boy he saved when John started laughing, helplessly, because honestly, _who the fuck did Dutch think he was_?

"Actually," John said, tamping down on his hiccoughs of laughter, "Arthur did tell me how you met. You was in _jail_ , and you saw a fifteen year old kid across from you and knew you'd found a _mark_."

Dutch had often had occasion to look at John in annoyance, in impatience—this was perhaps the first time that John had seen real _rage_ in his eyes, and considering the position John was in, it was a wonder it didn't frighten him more. "I very much doubt Arthur told you _that_ ," Dutch said, his tone deceptively calm, and John held his coffee cup up to him in a mocking toast.

" _Arthur_ thinks you're a visionary," John agreed, his tone light, "but as you've kindly pointed out to me, _I am not Arthur_."

 


	6. Chapter Three, Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur wasn't getting better. He was getting worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's been researching 1890s wound care? (hint, its me!) This is a lovely 'lets torture our favorite character' chapter (Hi, oheart!) so there is some gore here. Also, about timelines: in the game its not really said what the camp was up to while Arthur was healing up, which sort of implies that nothing major did. In this fic, they're just going about their business, including canon events, while Arthur convalesces. Some canon events will therefore be happening while Arthur is still incapacitated, because he is not a main player at the camp anymore.

Arthur wasn't getting better. He was getting worse.

He had moments of lucidity, where he would usually ask for painkillers or whiskey. The good Reverend had apparently limitless supply of the latter, and the camp kept a good stock of the former. The rest of the time he spent in fevered sleep, muttering incoherently, and clawing at the bindings that immobilized his shoulder.

"I had to tie him up to get him on my horse—I'm a stranger," Charles Smith told John, "I think he dreams he still is."

"Yeah, or tied up someplace else," John replied. Who knew what all that fucker Colm had done to him, after all.

Eventually Dutch and Hosea called a type of a powwow over his sickbed, his shoulder unbound and looking like rotten meat.

"We have to do something, he'll lose the arm at this rate," Dutch said, and whatever John thought about Dutch, there was clear, honest concern in his voice.

"We need to open the whole thing up and drain it," Hosea said, looking troubled. "Cut out the dead flesh and then pack it with something—honey, maybe, I've heard that works."

"Uh, _no_ ," John snapped, utterly agog. "What we _need_ is a _doctor_."

"John," Dutch said, exchanging a meaningful glance with Hosea, "We have to think about the safety of everyone here. Bringing a doctor here to treat a gunshot is definitely going to get to the ears of the law."

"Fine, then I'll take him into town—"

Instant, unquestioning denial. _"No._ "

"You just said he might _lose his arm_ —"

"Mister Marston," and it was so much like Arthur's cold, dangerous tone that maybe it was where he'd learned it, " _we do not trust you_."

John gawped at that, stunned. "You think I'm going to _hurt Arthur_?"

"No," he replied, lowly, "I think you're going to set the law on us as soon as you have him away from here."

If wasn't, John suddenly realized, a tug of war that he and Dutch were engaged in. It was Solomon's choice, and John was the one unwilling to see Arthur cut in half. "Jesus. _Jesus_."

"John," Hosea said, his tone soothing, conciliatory, "I know I don't look like much, but I know what I'm about. It is going to be unpleasant, but we are going to take care of this."

Unpleasant didn't come close to covering it. It was quite probably the worst moment of his life.

They gave Arthur as much morphine as they thought they could, without killing him. It still took Charles and Bill Williamson both, the two largest men in camp aside from Arthur himself, to hold him down once Hosea started cutting into Arthur's shoulder with his thin-balded folding knife. They'd doused everything in moonshine beforehand, enough of it that Dutch, who was holding the lantern, took a few steps back during the process. The _sound_ that Arthur made the when knife sliced in—it was indescribable, making John sick to his stomach. He sounded like they were _killing_ him.

"I was my sister's midwife," Missus Adler said, standing beside John him with a bundle of clean bandages, a step back from the bedroll. "She hollered worse than that. He'll be _fine_."

"He's still got the goddamn _bullet_ in him!" Hosea exclaimed, hunched over, fingers red with Arthur's blood. "Dutch, I need some more light here."

Instinctively, John took a step forward when Dutch did, eyes wide. Missus Adler stopped him, a hand on his elbow. "I was my sister's midwife," she said again, almost gently. "Right now you ain't gonna be anything but in the way."

"He ain't giving _birth_ ," John snapped, annoyed, shaking off the hand.

"And you ain't his worried husband, but trust me, you'll still be in the way."

Hosea was speaking quietly as he worked, telling Dutch where to direct the light, his slim fingers nearly two knuckles deep inside Arthur's shoulder. Arthur at least seemed to have passed out, hands laying limp and open beside him on the ground. John could heard the nauseating squelch of Hosea's fingers inside the bloody cavity, seeming impossibly loud, but after what could only have been a minute or two he finally retrieved his prize.

A lead bullet, mashed into a flat mushroom shape, no bigger than John's thumbnail.

"What a mess," Hosea said, sounding as exhausted as John felt. "Let's wash this out with some alcohol while he's still out and pack it. Missus Adler? Those bandages?"

Sadie Adler had some of the steadiest hands John'd ever seen, and he'd met plenty of gunslingers. She seemed completely unbothered by the gore, holding the quickly bloody bandages in place as Hosea bound the entire arm tight against Arthur's side from clavicle to elbow.

"Thank you, Mister Williamson, Mister Smith," Dutch said, magnanimously, as Hosea finished up, "you may have helped save this poor man's life."

' _Wonderful_ ," Williamson grumbled, clearly uninterested, and he knocked his shoulder into John's as he walked away towards the fire. Charles instead stopped a moment, giving John a long, unreadable look.

"Your friend is strong," he said, gravely. "He will survive."

"You can come over now, Mister Martson," Missus Adler called, before John could consider what to say to that, and he was by him in an instant, running his fingers appraisingly over the white bandages, already staining red in the center.

"You should watch 'im for a while," Hosea advised. "We gave him a lot of morphine."

"Yeah," John agreed absently, taking a corner of the bedroll to wipe the sweat and tears off of Arthur's face.

"John," he pressed, tone grave, "this is important. Morphine can stop you breathing."

John looked up at him, eye bloodshot from lack of sleep, from worry, and replied, "You think I been doing _anything_ lately but watching him keep breathing?"

*

John wasn't sure how it happened, because he'd been asleep when it did—sleeping off three days of wiping fevered sweat from Arthur's face, holding him down while Sadie or Hosea changed his bandages, listening to him mutter deliriously under his breath, for Isaac, for Eliza, for John—even for fucking Dutch, far more often that John wanted to think about.

What woke him was a high, child's voice. "'Her sister, Miss Watson, a to-ler-a-ble slim old maid, with go— go-gillies—'"

"Goggles," Arthur said, voice like glass on gravel, but instantly familiar.

"—with goggles on," the child's voice corrected, "had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a spelling-book."

John peeled his eyes open and, for a moment, felt as if he had gone back in time. Arthur had drug himself up to lean his shoulders against the wagon wheel, and Abigail's son was sitting cross-legged by his good arm, brow furrowed over a novel. The boy looked nothing like Isaac, really, but Isaac was the only other child John had known, and it _felt_ like they looked alike. To see Abigail's son with his head tilted towards Arthur's over a book was utterly surreal.

"'She worked me mi-dd-ling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up—' Mister Arthur, what's a widow?"

"If a woman's husband dies, she's a widow."

"Oh." There was a long pause, while John lay motionless in his bedroll, not entirely convinced he wasn't dreaming. "My ma doesn't have a husband. Is she a widow?"

Arthur hummed, thoughtful. "I don't know your ma, so I don't know. A woman don't have to have a husband to have a child, its … well, its a bit complicated."

There was a pause. "What's 'complicated'?"

"Oh Jesus," Arthur groaned, and John had heard that tone plenty himself. "Complicated is … it means it takes a lot of years to understand it. And you don't have enough years yet."

Arthur still looked terrible—he was only barely upright, both his eyes were black, and there was sweat beading on his forehead and hairline. His eyes were bloodshot and the bandage on his shoulder was stained yellow with lymph oozing from the wound beneath. But he was _awake_ , his eyes focused and aware, and coherent enough to be reading Mark Twain with Abigail's son like it was something he did all the time. John kind of felt like pinching himself.

"… Arthur?"

Arthur glanced up at him, corner of his mouth twitching like he would smile if he had the energy. "Mornin', John. You seen my hat?"

John gawped for a moment, mouth hanging open. "Your _hat_? I am gonna wring your goddamn _neck_."

He didn't, obviously. Instead he scrambled over on his his hands and knees and kissed him, twisting one hand into Arthur's sweaty, greasy hair. He fully expected Arthur to shove him away but he didn't, just tilted his head and curled his right hand around John's neck, thumb slotting under his jawbone, like they did this every day.

"… you're gross." Abigail's son said after a few seconds, and Arthur did turn his head aside then, to laugh.

"We really are," he agreed, more for John's sake than Jack, who was standing up with his book to wander off. He shifted his hand to John's shoulder, pushing him back enough that Arthur could give him a narrow, appraising look. "This gonna be a habit now? You tryin' to kiss me in front'a outlaws?"

"Is you _letting_ me gonna be a habit now?" John replied, slightly breathless, more from his own audacity than anything else.

"… probably not," he admitted. "Ain't really in a shape to object at the moment."

"Jesus, thanks for that _ringing endorsement._ "

"John," he drawled, feverish eyes intent, "why are we in Dutch's camp?"

He thought how delirious Arthur had been—he supposed it was no surprise Arthur didn't fully remember. "I— Malloy in Valentine said he didn't have enough men to help. And the Pinkertons said they'd only look if I promised them Dutch. So I … I found your letters and I came here." Arthur groaned, throwing a hand over his eyes, and John snapped, "Well, what was I supposed to do? Dutch hates the O'Driscolls and you always say he cares about you, so—"

"I don't want you owin' favors to Dutch."

"I don't care. Jesus, Arthur, you could have _died._ You still—your shoulder—"

"That don't matter—"

"Of course it _matters_. You always—" John huffed out a breath after a moment trying to calm himself—he'd been driving himself crazy over Arthur for weeks, and he didn't need to start going at him over his self-sacrifice when he still looked half-dead. "I did what I did and its done. If you wanna have a go at me over that then maybe we'll discuss why you have a bunch of letters from Dutch in your saddlebags."

Arthur still had a hand over his eyes, blocking out the light, his voice thready. "You knew I talked to Dutch. Didja think I used smoke signals?"

"Right. So you have a friendly correspondence with the feller that you think its dangerous for me to owe favors to."

"I didn't say _dangerous,_ it just— its a bad idea, is all."

"Hm," John said, because he honestly _agreed—_ owning favors to Dutch was a bad idea. He just wanted Arthur to admit that it was because _Dutch_ was a bad idea.

"Don't much matter now. You're right, its done." Arthur lowered himself back down onto the ground, grimacing, breathing hard, gripping at his bandaged shoulder with his good hand. "The, uh … the kid … what you know about him?"

John narrowed his eyes. "Belongs to one of the camp women. Abigail something."

Arthur was quiet a long time, staring off to the side, where the kid had gone earlier. "He … uh, you reckon he looks like Dutch?"

Christ, what a mess that would be. "Reckon he looks like a kid. I ain't seen him enough to say."

"Imagine bringing a child into all this." Arthur muttered under his breath.

But Dutch had already done that before—to Arthur. No matter how adult he had perceived himself, Arthur had been fifteen when he met Dutch, and if he'd been anything like John he'd looked younger. A lack of regular meals will do that. When Arthur had found John, he'd fed him. When Dutch had found Arthur, he'd _recruited_ him. He hadn't asked him if he need help, or offered to take care of him, he had literally told him his _manifesto_.

He didn't say that—Arthur would just argue that he hadn't been a child and that Dutch had always done right by him. "Well, I guess some folk don't feel like they got a choice."

"You always got a choice," Arthur muttered, shifted to get comfortable on the bedroll, and closed his eyes.

*

A day or two later, Abigail Roberts came up to John as he was washing up a bit in the lake and stood over him, arms crossed, looking pinched around the eyes. "You, your friend. He's been reading with my son?"

Remembering the wariness with which she had been watching them, John kept his tone mild. "Just trying to help the boy. The able menfolk are too busy, I reckon."

"Yeah," she breathed, something aggrieved about it. "Too busy for a lot of things"

"If you don't want him to—"

"No, I—" she looked abashed suddenly, looking aside. "I'm asking you because I know he ain't well, your friend, so do think it'd be too much for me to sit with 'em, too? I ain't as good a reader as Jack but I've been tryin' to learn."

Arthur had taught John and Isaac to read around the round wooden table in Eliza's kitchen, Isaac five and John fifteen at the start. John had hated it—it made him feel stupid, and the five year old was much better at it than him, right from the start. He'd lived fifteen years without knowing how, so what was the point? On several occasions Arthur had physically pushed him back down into a chair at the table to copy letters. It wasn't until he got his first letter, Arthur letting them know that his trip would be taking longer than usual, that he saw the value.

"Can you read it aloud, John," Eliza said, looking chagrined. "You know I can't," which actually, he hadn't.

"If Arthur's so big on reading, why ain't he taught you?"

"Oh, he tried," she admitted. "Sat me and Isaac down next to each other and wrote out copy letters for both of us—and I couldn't _stand_ it. I raised that boy all but alone for three years without reading a blessed word, so I sure didn't need it now. Told Arthur he could take his books and go hang. Now," she looked rueful, "my little boy can read a letter from his Pa and I can't."

Eliza had learned to read, eventually—swallowed her pride and worked next to John and Isaac, Arthur their unlikely schoolmarm.

"I'm sure Arthur wouldn't mind," John told Abigail, thinking of Eliza reading bible stories aloud by the fire, Isaac by her feet. He didn't know Abigail, but it felt like that was the sort of thing that every mother should get to have. "But if he ain't up to it, I can help you."

Her eyes turned sharp. "You can read?"

"That so surprising?"

She sniffed, looked at him suspiciously for a moment. "Don't much look the type I guess, but then, your friend don't neither."

John figured he should have been more insulted by that, but he was aware of how he and Arthur looked, particularly these days. "Then why ask us? I know Dutch can read. He taught Arthur."

She sniffed again, pursing her lips. "Well I reckon that's none of your business."

John shrugged. "You're the one coming to me."

"It's just cause of camp talk. Gossip. Molly didn't like him tutoring the women folk anymore, so he doesn't."

Molly, he thought, was the pretty redhead who slept in Dutch's test, nose constantly pressed against a compact mirror. "And the other men?"

"Look, why does it _matter_?" She snapped. "They're busy, you ain't, and I want to learn."

There was something else at work there, something that made two outsiders she seemed awful leery of still safer to ask a favor of than her own camp. Still, he couldn't see a real reason to say no. They would be here a while, it seemed, until Dutch got whatever pound of flesh he wanted out of John. There was no harm in some reading lessons.

John had a niggling suspicion, though, about what he and Arthur had walked themselves into here. "So, I guess Jack looks an awful lot like his father."

Abigail gave him a sharp look, dangerous. "Well then you must be a fortune teller, since ain't no one know who Jack's father is."

So, fine. There was that, too.

He found Arthur where he left him, sitting up against the wheel by Strauss' wagon. He had his journal open in his lap, to one of the sketched pages, no writing, and Jack was leaning over to point at a cartoonish drawing Arthur had done of John flailing like a drowning man over the edge of a shallow bathtub.

"Does he hate baths too? They're always _cold_."

"No, he just can't swim. Although—" he looked up at John's approach, eyeing him critically, "—now that you mention is, maybe he _does_ hate baths."

"Screw you, Morgan, I just washed."

" _Yourself_?" Arthur asked, looking dubious. It was actually sort of a relief—he would take an Arthur that was giving him shit over an Arthur in a delirious fever any day.

"You're hardly one to talk, right now." Arthur hadn't shaved in weeks, and was looking quite the mountain man. It was also the case that he'd been reduced to bathing out of a bucket, to protect his bandages from getting wet. _Alone,_ mind, even though the other blonde woman at camp, Karen, had very _solicitously_ offered to help.

(John had offered to help, too. Arthur had dryly said that he didn't trust John to be a gentleman.)

Jack was scratching his cheek, watching the exchange curiously. "You're weird. Do you have any more pictures, Mister Arthur?"

"Loads," Arthur said, closing the book, "and I'll show you tomorrow, but right now I need to talk to John."

John gave him a curious look, and only got more curious when Arthur made a gesture he understood to mean 'check for people listening'. When he was assured they were alone he asked, in a hushed whisper, "You been hearing what the gang is up to down here?"

John hadn't—even if they had felt free to talk around him, which they hadn't, he probably wouldn't have been paying much attention. "Robbin', I expect. Maybe some killin' and general mayhem."

"They're trying to play both sides with the Grays and the Braithwaites."

The Grays he knew—they both did—because the Sheriff was a Gray, and he _loved_ bounty hunters. Had, in fact, tried to pin a tin star on both John and Arthur last time they'd brought someone into his jail; anything to keep from having to do his job himself. Come to think of it, hadn't he seen something flashy pinned to Dutch's vest?

"Wait, wait … did Sheriff Gray _deputize Dutch_?"

"Yes," Arthur hissed, "and Williamson and Escuella, the drunken bastard. All while the other half of the camp burned the Grays tobacco fields and half their farm. Its like they're dead set on restarting the damn Civil War, except this time both sides are the South, and this whole camp is right in the damn middle."

"And what do you reckon we can do about it?" John replied. "You wanna go to tell the law, I'm all for it, but I'm bettin' you don't."

Arthur grimaced, conflicted. "Dutch … he don't seem himself."

John wanted to point out, for the hundredth time, that Arthur hadn't been around Dutch for more than quick meetings (or apparently, letters) in fifteen years, but he wasn't sure he was ready to rehash that argument. Or that Arthur was up for it. "There's a lot of people after these folk. Reckon he's getting desperate, and desperate people do dumb things." Things like running to an outlaw camp and indenturing themselves to get their partner back, John thought, though he didn't say it. "I don't know that there's much we can do about it without sending Dutch to the Pinkertons."

Arthur's expression said that clearly was still not an option, damn it. "They'd hang him in a second."

Who gives a _fuck_ , John didn't say. "Then we settle our debts and get gone. We _can't_ be responsible for these folk, Arthur."

"They got a _kid_ here." Arthur said, as if that changed anything else.

"Fine," John said, "then you tell me. What are we gonna do about it?"

Arthur was quiet for a long time, thoughtful. Arthur wasn't dumb but he wasn't a manipulator, he just didn't have the skill for convincing others around to his way of thinking. If he had an argument to make, he usually let his guns make it. They both knew that, so when Arthur said, "I'm gonna talk to Dutch," it mostly sounded to John like, we aren't going to do anything at all.

 


	7. Chapter Three, Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things start getting really, really tense in this chapter, and that's mostly because, the slow build in the game? That's reliant on Arthur and John both having rose colored glasses, and here, only Arthur has them, so things snowball a little quicker. That said, I am committed to addressing at least the majority of the game's major storylines, and potentially some (reimagined) version of the epilogues.
> 
> A couple things get brushed over in this chapter, most notably the Braithwaite Manor assault. That was an amazing mission, but I could not possible do it justice in prose, and anyway, I couldn't really come up with a plausible reason for this version of John to go.
> 
> I hope you enjoy.

Hosea finally pronounced Arthur well enough to stand, with help, and John wedged himself under Arthur's good arm the next morning to help him hobble to the fire. Arthur was red-faced and sweaty by the time they got there, but he swatted off John's fussing, clearly frustrated with his own infirmity.

Charles Smith came to collect John from there, carrying with him John's own rifle, which Dutch had confiscated on his first day at camp. "Come with me. We're going hunting."

John answered with a bewildered look. "Uh … no? I don't think Dutch even wants me leaving the camp."

"I'm your escort. And since you've been eating our food, you should do something about getting more in." He held out John's rifle, expression impassive.

That was true enough—Arthur hadn't been eating much of anything until recently, but they hadn't begrudged John his portions of their thick, flavorless stews. That said, "This really feels like an excuse to take me out into the woods and shoot me," John said dubiously.

"John," Arthur said into his coffee, "if Dutch wanted you shot he wouldn't feel any need to send you out into the woods to do it."

"He would if he didn't want you to know," John replied, with an arched brow. He could see from the way Arthur winced, that one struck home.

Charles shook John's rifle at him, still holding it out. "I promise not to shoot you or tie you up on the back of my horse, as long as you promise the same," he said, sounding perhaps slightly amused. He was very hard to read.

"… Go with 'im, John." Arthur said after a moment. "Find out if you can even still shoot with that bum arm."

John flexed his splinted left arm automatically. It still ached a bit up towards the elbow, but his wrist was fine, and the rifle didn't weigh enough that he thought the weight would be an issue. He fired with his right, anyway. "Broken arm an' all, I'm still a better shot than you, I guarantee."

"So go prove it," Arthur replied, tilting his head back. "Bring me a rabbit, and don't shoot it in the gut this time."

" _One_ _time_ ," John grumbled, pushing himself to his feet and snatching his gun away from Charles, " _one_ _time_ you blow up a rabbit and you never hear the end of it."

John took Boadicea—it wasn't like Arthur was using her, and he'd obviously had no opportunity to find an suitable replacement for Old Boy. John waited until they were a few minutes out for camp to ask, casually, "So why is Dutch really having you get me out of the way? Or did he not even tell you?"

Charles looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "Most of the camp men are doing something for the Grays in town. Dutch decided he didn't want you all but alone in the camp. Something about it being too much of a temptation to run off now that your friend is on the mend."

"What's to stop me running off on _you?"_

"Arthur," Charles replied calmly. "Anyone who's seen you fussing over him knows that you wouldn't leave him with Dutch."

Which was absolutely true, and John hadn't really tried to hide it, but it still took him aback a little to hear it said so plainly. "What has Dutch said to all of you about Arthur?"

Charles gave him a long, searching look, and then did not answer. John couldn't determine if that was out of loyalty to Dutch, or because Dutch hadn't actually told them anything at all.

Charles was an extremely competent horseman and and good shot with a gun. He was a better shot with a bow, taking down two turkeys not too far from the camp, but they were aiming for deer, so they went out another couple hours to Scarlett Meadows. John had read about a train robbery near there a few months back—it only just now occurred to him that it, too, had probably been Dutch's boys.

The sun was setting when they finally returned to the camp, loaded down—including two rabbits, both shot _perfectly_ by John, _thank you very much_.

The first sign was that there was no lookout. Charles hadn't said anything for most of the ride, but somehow he seemed to become even quieter as they approached, brow furrowed. The second sign was the crowd, what looked like all the men in the camp gathered around the central awning, loading what looked like a truly impressive number of bandoleers.

The third sign was a woman's high, persistent sobbing.

John wasn't sure whether it was a sign or not, but it was also the case that when he finally caught sight of Arthur he was on his feet, though leaning back heavily against one of the wagons, left arm up in a sling, and he had both his pistols back at his hips, shotgun leaning against the wagon by his side.

John skirted the crowd once he dismounted—though of course Charles went right to them—and instead inched up beside Arthur. "The hell is going on?" He whispered.

Arthur's reply was terse, his eyes focused intensely on the preparations going on. "The Braithwaites kidnapped the kid."

That was when he saw Abigail on the other side of the menfolk, the women knotted around her, sobbing her heart out. "Jesus Christ. Who the fuck does that?"

"Someone who has underestimated our resolve," Dutch said, bombastic, striding over to John and Arthur. He held out a hand to John. "Your gun. Now," in a voice that brooked no argument. Arthur put his hand on John's arm when he instinctively started to do as he was told.

"I'd just give him one of mine as soon as you go," Arthur said, matter of fact.

Something passed between Arthur and Dutch just then that John couldn't read, the men behind Dutch falling silent, and John thought, incredulously, _Holy shit, maybe Arthur_ did _talk to him_. "Arthur," Dutch said, terse, "this is not the time—"

"John's a good shot. You're going to want every able man left carrying a gun if the Grays or the Braithwaites show up," Arthur cut him off.

"He is a good shot," Charles agreed, mildly.

Arthur and Dutch stared each other down for along moment, and then Abigail was storming over, eyes wet, shoving Dutch back with both hands. "You all are waving your _dicks_ at each other while those monsters are doing God-knows-what to _my son_! Let the man have his fucking gun, Dutch—what's he gonna do, shoot the lot of us? They're _lawmen_. Just find my _goddamn son._ "

Dutch caught both of Abigail's narrow wrists— _gently_ , carefully—and held them. "We are _going_ to find him, Abigail."

Arthur grimaced a little, as if Abigail's diatribe chastened him, as well, and exchanged a look with Dutch over Abigail's shoulder. "You know me, Dutch," he said, gravely. "I ain't gonna let no harm come to these folk. From anyone."

The air between the two of them didn't become any less heavy, but Dutch nodded, and shouted for his boys to mount up.

*

It was anticlimactic, the waiting.

As soon as the men rode out John forced Arthur to sit, back against the wagon wheel, gun in easy reach. John trusted Arthur's aim, even in as sorry as a state as he was. Arthur wouldn't take a shot he wasn't sure of.

He took Arthur's offhand pistol and his shotgun, with the man's blessing, and went to set a watch by the treeline. The young'un—not the colored fella, he went with Dutch, but the other one—was already there, looking nervous and determined, holding a revolver with both hands. He jerked the gun up to point at John, wide eyed, when he approached.

"Y-you're not supposed to have guns," he said, voice trembling but hands steady.

John had heard the fella referred to as 'O'Driscoll', and reckoned he had an idea about his provenance. "And how long before they let you have a gun? Figure I earned it." When the boy furrowed his brow, looking conflicted, John elaborated. "Dutch gave me his blessing, all right? He wanted every gun he could get in case one'a the families turns up."

The boy seemed to accept that, lowering his gun, though he still eyed John with nervous suspicion. "Bill reckoned that they killed most of the Grays when they were in town. Definitely got the sheriff and the deputies. Not before they got Sean, though."

John didn't want to hear this. He hadn't liked Sheriff Gray, what he knew of him, but the man had been a harmless drunk. And here was another town blown to hell by Dutch and his boys—they were always leaving bodies behind them. The fact that they'd only lost one of their own was, frankly, a miracle. "Yeah, well, any they missed would have a powerful reason to come looking."

"And you'd shoot 'em if they did?" The boy asked, curious. "I mean, ain't you supposed to be a lawman?"

"Why do people keep _saying_ that?" John muttered under his breath, annoyed. "We hunt bounties. Closest we get to being lawmen is having a writ from the US Marshalls what gives us permission for government bounties."

"Sounds a lot like being a lawman to me," the boy said, dubious.

"Reckon lawmen hang around fewer outlaws than I do," John replied dryly, arching an eyebrow at the boy, and the kid nodded, seeming to accept that logic.

"I'm Kieran, by the way," he said after a moment, oddly shy.

John gave him a look. "Not _O'Driscoll_?"

The boy scowled back at him. "I _ain't_ an O'Driscoll," he huffed, in a manner that suggested that he'd said it a _lot_.

John opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by a sudden outburst of raised voices from the camp, a cacophony of outraged yelling, though he couldn't make out the individual words. He waved at Kieran to stay as he stalked back towards the knot of people around the campfire.

"—off of me!" Abigail was yelling, faced flushed, at a sneering Micah Bell. Susan Grimshaw had a hand on Abigail's elbow but wasn't doing much to hold her back, scowling darkly at Bell.

"I was _trying_ to be _comforting_ ," Bell sniped, "in this _trying time—_ "

"Did you put hands on this woman?" John interrupted darkly, letting his hand fall to the butt of Arthur's pistol, tucked into the side of his denims. Micah glanced at him and just as quickly dismissed him, much to John's annoyance.

"I have been nothing but _kind_ —" Micah was going on, his lips curled up in a sneer.

"You're a putrid little _rat_ ," Abigail spat back, shaking off Miss Grimshaw's hand. "You think I'm _stupid_?"

"I think you're _hysterical_ ," Micah replied, sneer morphing into a smirk. "Maybe you should lie down, close your eyes—I'll keep an eye on you."

Miss Grimshaw caught the hand that Abigail had raised to slap him before the blow could land. "You're supposed to be keeping watch, Mister Bell," Miss Grimshaw said primly, "so go _keep watch_ , and leave us be."

Miss Grimshaw was a dour old bird, but she commanded respect. Micah sneered at her one more time, but he stalked off, sauntering bow-legged off towards the scout fire, and Abigail seemed to immediately deflate once he was out of earshot, hands trembling slightly before she tucked them into her skirts. "I wish you two had sent that man to the gallows," she said to John, expression grim.

John snorted. "Believe me, I tried," he muttered.

"If you wanna shoot him while Dutch is gone, we won't tell," the young colored girl said, not entirely sounding like she was joking. Miss Grimshaw clucked disapprovingly, but didn't actually reprimand her.

"Dutch trusts him," she said, sounding dubious. "Not saying I agree, but there you have it."

It hadn't been aimed at him, but John couldn't resist muttering under his breath, "Oh, well, if _Dutch_ trusts him …" He probably wasn't really in a good position to bad-mouthing Dutch to the man's own followers, but the look on the women's faces told him that Dutch's judgment, at least in regards to Micah Bell, was generally accepted to be questionable.

"It's not your concern, Mister Marston," Miss Grimshaw replied, pointedly. "As far as the _law_ is concerned, we're none of us any different from Mister Bell, and you'd turn in every man in this camp if Arthur weren't around to stop you. _You ain't a friend to us_."

"You don't need to—" Mary-Beth started to say, but Miss Grimshaw cut her off with a sharp gesture, face grim.

" _No_ ," she snapped. "Now you girls listen here, _these men_ ," and here she jabbed a finger at John, making him step back, "aren't here like some kinda _fairytale prince_ to ride you outta this life. _These men_ ," another jab, "only care about money, and they will watch our men _hang_ to get it."

John kept his face blank, but it stung, oddly. The women here had been kind to him, and to Arthur, but it also wasn't like she was exactly _wrong_. Every man in that camp was worth a pretty penny, and he'd turned in men who he knew would hang plenty of times, without any second thoughts. He mostly subscribed to the idea that what the law decided to do with them wasn't his problem.

Then again, if Arthur had thought that way, all them years ago, John wouldn't have lived to see sixteen.

"You know Arthur wouldn't let that happen," he said finally, because Susan Grimshaw had known Arthur, just as Dutch had, back in his wild youth.

She glared at him, hands on her hips, between John and the women like he was as much a threat as Micah had been. "You," she said, voice rough like gravel and hard as steel, _"_ are not Arthur."

*

John was asleep when the men came back, curled up in the shade of one of the wagons, bedroll slotted a minimum respectable distance away from Arthur's. No one woke him when they trailed back into camp empty-handed. No one and no thing woke him in fact, until almost midday, when, drowsing, he heard a voice from far too close, "Just visitors, Mister Van der Linde," and he froze.

Arthur was still asleep, flat on his back like a body in a coffin, the same way he always slept. John clapped one hand over his mouth, startling him awake, and grabbed the back of his collar with the other to drag them both underneath the wagon behind them.

What the fuck were the goddamn _Pinkertons_ doing here?

… right, so that was a stupid question. Still, it made all their talk about needing Arthur to find Dutch ring a little bit hollow. And if they hadn't really needed Arthur for that, what was their game in the first place?

Arthur wrestled John's hand off his mouth in annoyance, but had the good sense to recognize it as a sign to whisper. "The hell are you doing, boy?"

"Agent Milton is out there, talkin' to Dutch," John hissed back. Arthur cursed, rolled over onto his front like he was going to crawl back out, so John threw himself across his back, pinning him. "Are you crazy, Arthur? Milton's been looking for an excuse to take you in for _months_."

"He ain't takin' me anywhere if I shoot 'im first," Arthur said darkly.

"You ain't doin' any such thing," John whispered back. "Anyway, there's a dozen armed folk out there who might save you the trouble."

John concluded from Arthur's grumbling that he conceded the point, and so they crouched underneath the wagon as Dutch Van der Linde, notorious outlaw, spouted flowery prose at Andrew Milton, notorious government jackass, like it was somehow a battle that was going to be won by the person with the better _credo_. Jesus, Milton was as bad as Dutch, talking about _society_ and _law_ as if they were the perfect solution to _everything_.

It didn't end in blood, which was honestly the last thing that John had expected. Milton and his dogsbody left without a shot fired, and Dutch gave the order to tear down the camp.

Given John had expected bloodshed, he definitely should have expected what happened next.

He was crawling out from under the wagon, helping Arthur pull himself out, one-armed, behind him, when a pair of hands pulled him out from under in one yank, slamming him up against the wagon hard enough to stun him. Dutch stood flanked by Javier Escuella and Micah Bell as Bill Willamson quickly disarmed him, tossing his gun aside like trash, holding him pinned up against the wagon with one large hand in the center of his chest.

"Did you bring Pinkertons to my camp, John Marston?" Dutch said, a low, even tone that reminded John how fucking _dangerous_ this man was.

"Who else coulda led 'em here?" Micah sneered, gun already drawn. "These fellers ain't been nothing but trouble, Dutch."

"You shot up three whole goddamn _towns_ ," Arthur argued, weakly, struggling to pull himself to his feet, knees in the dirt. "Didja think you was being _subtle_ , Dutch?"

"What I _think_ ," Dutch said, lowly, "is that your _boy_ here is trying to play us for fools."

"You told me yourself, he ain't been outta your sight except to hunt, and that was _your_ idea." Arthur said, voice tight with pain as he pulled himself up against the wheel, leaning heavily against the wagon as he eyed the men around them. "And anyway, we got no love for the Pinkertons."

"It's awfully convenient, though, isn't it," Dutch said, in that deliberate cadence, every word carefully chosen. "The minute you start looking better, the law knows exactly where to find us."

"Ain't real convenient for me," John said, tightly.

"You burned down two whole goddamn _plantations._ Your boys shot the _Sheriff of Rhodes_. Of course the fucking law found you!" Arthur snapped.

Javier was fingering his guns; Micah was twitching with an eagerness to shoot. Neither of them looked like they needed much convincing to blame John for their current predicament. Dutch's eyes were narrow, calculating, darting once between Arthur and John, perhaps weighing the cost and benefit of taking John out of the picture right then. Dutch still believed that Arthur could be swayed, John could see that. He was trying to find the right words to have Arthur see John as a traitor.

There had always been a strange sort of energy between Dutch and Arthur. John had always felt it—it was part of the reason he disliked Dutch so strongly. Dutch had a _hold_ on Arthur that even fifteen years years couldn't seem to shake, but something had changed, the last few months. What had once felt like admiration, even affection, now looked like _guilt_ and _habit_ , and those weren't nearly as powerful.

"I brought you into my camp," Dutch said, stepping up closer to John, "I fed and sheltered you. I did _favors_ for you that you have yet to repay. So you tell me, son—was I wrong to do all that? Did I spend our resources on someone who'd stab us in the back?"

John licked his dry lips. He wasn't sure what answer he could give that Dutch would believe. "I told you when I came here," he said slowly, "that if I double-crossed you, Arthur would never forgive me."

Dutch glanced at Arthur, gaze narrow. "So you did," he agreed, thoughtful. Arthur looked back at him, levelly, and this was the moment—either Dutch trusted Arthur or he didn't, either he believed Arthur was still loyal or he didn't. Either he believed that Arthur controlled John the way that he had controlled Arthur, or he didn't.

Dutch stepped back, hands falling away from his pistols. "… let him go."

Javier and Bill didn't look defiant—more disappointed. They'd wanted _blood_. It was only Micah who tried to argue, stepping forward when Bill stepped back, "Dutch, come on. You've said yourself, you can't trust this one."

"And he's lucky I didn't," Dutch replied, meeting John's eyes evenly, "because if there had been even a moment of your days here that I didn't know about, Mister Marston, I would've shot you right here."

"Right, that's me," John muttered, rubbing at the new knot on the back of his head where Williamson had thrown him against the wagon, "I'm _lucky_."

 


	8. Chapter Three, Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really excited about this chapter and I hope you will be too!
> 
> So I actually had to write this chapter twice--or at least the opening scene. See, I had this whole piece written where Dutch finds Arthur and John reading with Abigail and tries to encourage Arthur to make advances to her, while sending John out to clear Shady Belle alone (basically a suicide mission) and I kept rereading it and it didn't _feel_ right and I couldn't figure out why, until finally Abigail popped in my head and was like "yeah hi its me, I'm what's off, kindly leave me out of these boys's shit I got shit of my own right now" so I wrote an entirely new section which I like _way_ better.
> 
> Anyway, if you've read this far you know I'm more a character driven person than an action-driven one, and there is a lot of character in this bit. I hope you enjoy. As always, if you have any questions about what was going on in my head regarding any of this stuff, just ask! I'll talk meta until my fingers bleed. xo

John was still shaky with adrenaline as Arthur pulled him around to the other side of the wagon. They weren't unnoticed—they were never totally unnoticed, not since they arrived—but they were at least no longer in anyone's sight line. He looked John over once, quickly, while John tried to breath more evenly, clenching his trembling hands in the front of his trousers.

"Well," John bit out through gritted teeth, "that was fun."

Arthur was always the unflappable one, the one who only became more still as things got more dangerous, but the hand he had on John's shoulder was gripping just a little too tight for comfort. "Okay," he said, deceptively calm, "this is what's gonna happen. You're gonna wait until dark, and then you're gonna take Boadicea and get the hell out of here."

John jerked like he'd been struck. " _What_?"

"Look," Arthur said, sounding unfairly reasonable given the circumstances, "Dutch I can reason with, but Bell? Williamson? They want you dead."

" _Dutch_ wants me dead, you goddamn fool," John hissed. If he'd been less shaken up he would have kept the thought to himself, but that didn't mean it wasn't true.

"He don't want you dead," Arthur replied in that same reasonable tone. "If he did he woulda shot you when you first showed up here. He just wants you to be afraid of 'im."

That was the second time Arthur had casually thrown out something like that—the idea that if Dutch _really_ wanted to kill John, he would just _do_ it. Like Dutch just killed people as easy as that. Arthur seemed to have absolutely no idea how _not_ reassuring that was. "I ain't really willing to bet my life on that lunatic's _whims_."

"Which is why you're going."

"Which is why I _ain't_ , 'cause I ain't betting _your_ life on 'em, neither!"

Arthur rolled his eyes, and John wanted to _shake_ him. "No one is gonna do anything to me. You remember what that jackass Escuella said back before Valentine. Dutch thinks I'm _useful_."

"Yeah," John said, "that's exactly what I'm worried about. Dutch is going to try to make _use_ of you, and you're gonna _let_ him, and it's gonna run you right into a _bullet_ or Agent goddamn _Milton_."

"That'd still be better than having _you_ running off repaying his _favors_ ," Arthur finally snapped.

" _Why_?" John demanded. "Not like I wanna be running cons for Dutch, but why's it fine for you to do and the end of the goddamn world for me?"

" _Because you aren't me_ ," Arthur said, as if that oblivious statement should have some sort of deeper meaning. "You haven't done the things I have, John. If there's a hell I'm already damned. I'm old—"

"You're _thirty-seven_ —"

"Which is _ancient_ for folk who live like we do! _You're young_. You got a whole life ahead of you. You could still have a … a _family_ , a _home_ , and—"

"Of the two of us, _you're_ the one who went and tried to have that kind of life! I—" the words stuck in his throat, _Things We Don't Talk About_ , but he forced it out. "Look, I only ever wanted _you_."

Arthur immediately looked over his shoulder, like they were about to be caught. _"Christ,_ John, you can't just _say_ things like that!" He hissed.

"Well apparently if I _don't,_ you get goddamn fool ideas, like that sending me off will turn me into some kinda _homesteader,_ " John snapped. "If you want _shod_ of me—"

"You _know_ that ain't it!"

" _Do_ I know that? 'Cause half the time it seems like you don't even _want_ me unless you're drunk or dyin'! Like you're fucking _humoring_ me—"

Arthur's hand on John's shoulder was already pressing John back against the side of the wagon. It only took one step for him to pin John between himself and wood and kiss him.

John's arms immediately flew around his shoulders, grabbing handfuls of the back of Arthur's shirt as he pushed forward into him, anger making the kiss brutal, almost violent. He bit at Arthur's mouth until he tasted blood, until Arthur was fisting a hand in his hair just to hold him still, tilting his head to lick deep into the back of his mouth. Arthur kissed like he was making a statement, like it could make up for words he couldn't say, and the thing was—maybe it could, right now, because Arthur didn't _do_ this, didn't kiss him out of the blue in broad daylight like it was something he didn't need to hide.

John was gasping when Arthur finally pulled away, the swiftly displaced anger making him feel shivery and wrong-footed. Arthur pressed his forehead against John's, eyes closed, his good hand still tangled in John's hair.

"Do you think this is easy for me?" He murmured, close enough that his breath ghosted across John's lips. "I've always fallen in with better people than I deserve. I want— I want the _best_ for you, John, and that's not me. I'm a bad bet by anyone's measure."

"You've been a pretty safe bet for me," John replied, voice equally hushed. "You wanna tell me what I _deserve_? Reckon that's for me to decide."

When Arthur finally opened his eyes they were bright with emotion, uncertain and guilty. "It's ain't that I don't want you. _Fuck,_ I want you more than is good for me, for either of us. But this—people don't _do_ this, John, not forever. There's no _future_ in it."

"You don't know that," John shot back. "And since when are you the kind of man that cares what _other_ people do? We ain't other people."

Arthur chuckled at that, without much real humor. "No, we sure ain't." He slid his hand out of John's hair, taking a step back, unable to resist a quick glance around, ensuring they were still alone. "You can have anything you want outta me, John, you know that. But right now just … just let me keep you _safe_."

Because that was what this was about, of course. Arthur would lead John into a gun fight or a bar brawl without worrying for his well-being, but the one thing he seemed to _need_ to keep John protected from was Arthur's own past. Arthur had said himself, long ago: the last thing he wanted was for John to be like him. Maybe that was what this dislike of owing Dutch was really about—about Arthur seeing himself in John, and _hating_ it.

"You can't keep me safe," John said, almost gently. "What you can do is have my back when things go to shit, and let me do the same for you."

Arthur let out a long breath, looking down. "You've always been a better man than me, John Marston."

 _And you've always been a better man than you believe_ , John doesn't say. He wouldn't believe it right now, either.

*

When John turned eighteen, Arthur had taken him to a brothel.

He'd been a little stunned that Eliza hadn't seemed to care one jot, merely rolling her eyes when Arthur told her their destination—then again, Eliza had grown up in a saloon, she must have rubbed elbows with whores on the regular. He still couldn't help thinking that it was peculiar kind of a woman that, when her husband told her he was taking their ward to a whorehouse for his birthday, only said, primly, "Well, if you've got so much money to spend, you can pick up some new books for Isaac while you're in town."

That was the extent of her objections, such as they were: that it was a waste of money. Even when he heard Isaac ask her, as they were leaving, what a 'whore' was, Eliza sounded very unbothered and matter-of-fact when she told him it was a very friendly woman.

Arthur's whole family was kind of odd, John included.

Whores, of course, were plentiful in any given saloon in any given town, but apparently it was very important that they go to a proper brothel, like this was a bizarre right of passage, so they rode out to Tumbleweed, John feeling vaguely sick to his stomach the entire time. The premeditation of it didn't sit right with him—heading out specifically to pay for sex. Arthur could obviously tell, but seemed to think it was nerves, or maybe even excitement, and kept shooting him vaguely amused glances.

The thing was, it was just a bizarre thing for Arthur to suggest, to almost _insist_ upon. Arthur never slept with Eliza, either in the literal or figurative sense, and when he took John on bounties, he'd never noticed Arthur show any interest in any of the other women they came across, those for sale or otherwise. He'd never tried to talk to John about sex, either, other than once when he was fifteen, and well … that conversation wasn't really about _sex_ , anyway.

He desperately wanted to ask Arthur what this whole thing was really about, but he wasn't sure how to word the question. Arthur was treating taking a teenager to a whorehouse as a natural and self-explanatory thing, and John was a little worried that maybe _he was_ the strange one, for not being keen to fuck a stranger who was in it for money.

The place was gaudy and tasteless, red velvet and gold-colored tassels, overstuffed couches and wingback chairs, but there was also a barely concealed shabbiness to it, patches visible on the underside of cushions and the corners of draperies. It was a poor man's image of wealth, and John, standing there in his worn riding gear and a layer of trail dust, felt like his skin was crawling. The women were, uncharitable as it felt to think, much like the décor, with rouge and powder covering dark circles and pallor, looking at John and Arthur with narrow, predatory eyes uniformly lined in kohl.

John had never even met a woman who wore cosmetics before. They didn't look quite real, like porcelain dolls with dead eyes. And he was supposed to _pick_ one, like they were a new jacket. Try 'em on and see how they fit.

Arthur gave him over to the clutches of an aging madam who drug him from women to woman by his elbow, pointing out their features like a horse auction. "Lily here is the tallest we've ever had. Don't you love Iris's lovely blue eyes? Dahlia is from Mexico, just look at that tan."

She seemed to get impatient with him fairly quickly, her furrowed brow making the lines around her eyes deeper. "Oh come now, young man. I know you must feel spoilt for choice, but surely someone has caught your eye?"

Helpless, John glanced over to where Arthur had bellied up to the the bar in the corner, hat laid on the counter beside him, head tilted back as he downed a glass of whiskey.

"Hm," the old madam said, eyes narrowed. "Well, I'm sure we can find something to your taste."

She led him further into the house, the gas lights making the narrow hall dim and smokey, and through a curtained archway, the fabric violet this time, the fringe at the bottom faded with age.

It was men.

"Basil here is always a favorite," the woman was saying, still talking like a salesperson, and she held out a hand to a slender boy with curly dark hair falling over big, brown doe eyes. He had as much rouge on his mouth and cheeks as the woman had, and gave John a practiced, innocent look through long black eyelashes.

He looked about fourteen years old.

John nearly nearly knocked her off her feet when he pushed past her, bolting for the front door as fast as he could without running. The main room was a blur of bright colored dresses and tacky velvet which John hardly even saw—he needed _out_ , he felt like he could barely _breathe_ , like he was going to be sick. The door slammed against the outside wall when he shoved through it, glass rattling, his panting breath fogging the night air, drifting in front of his face like smoke. He didn't even realize that Arthur was chasing him until he spun John around in the middle of the courtyard, gripping him hard by the elbows to stop John's instinctive shove.

"The hell has gotten into you?" Arthur demanded in a low voice, giving him a gentle shake.

" _Me_? The hell has gotten into _you_ , bringin' me to a place like this?" John shouted back, pulling violently out of Arthur's grip. "That—those people—god _damn_ it, Arthur!"

"Christ, calm _down_ , Marston," Arthur hissed, reaching for him again, getting hold of the sleeve of John's shirt briefly before John knocked it off.

" _Fuck you_ , that—there were _children_ in there, Arthur!"

Arthur went very, very still.

John's words were tripping together, frantically. "That lady, she—there was another room, and—he was barely a fucking _teenager—_ "

"I didn't know," Arthur said, earnestly. "Jesus Christ, John, of course I didn't know. Fuck." He looked over his shoulder at the door for a moment, expression uncertain.

"How could you come here and not _know_?" John demanded.

Arthur was silent for a moment, working his jaw, and then admitted, with a shrug, "Never actually been here before. Got the name from a feller in the saloon."

"Then why the _fuck—_ what was the _point_ of this?"

"'Cause this is what you _do_ , John!" Arthur insisted, throwing his arms out to the sides. "When a boy gets old enough he's gotta— you have to _learn_."

These were someone else's words out of Arthur's mouth, John was sure of it. John had never heard the name _Dutch_ , not then, but he didn't have to know _whose_ words they were to know that they were definitely _not Arthur's_. "Learn _what_? That if you got the money, you can buy _people_?"

"To be a _man_ ," Arthur persisted, sounding slightly desperate.

"If paying to fuck someone makes you a man, I guess I made a lot of folk into men back in the day." John flung the words out between them like a challenge, and if he'd been less upset, less angry, he might have felt worse about the stunned horror that flashed over Arthur's face, as if he'd been slapped, as if he'd been _shot_.

"Jesus, John. _Jesus_."

"Don't act like you didn't know," John said, coldly. "I as good as told you once before."

Arthur scrubbed both his hands over his face, hard, but he still couldn't completely school his expression afterwards, looking unsettled and uncertain. "You … as I recall, you said the opposite. Got downright offended at the word." And damn, didn't that say something: that Arthur remembered that conversation as vividly as John did. That it was just as stuck in his memory.

"You're not dumb, Arthur," John replied. Because, yeah, at the time, fifteen years old, he'd liked to believe that his denial was convincing. Now, at eighteen, he knew that Arthur had seen right through him. That the truth was obvious.

"That's debatable," Arthur muttered back, chagrined.

John had told Arthur because he wanted, in that moment, to hurt him. He'd wanted to _shame_ him, but now, having said it out loud, humiliation was curling in his own gut. "You don't … _really_ believe that, do you? That this is what makes you a _man_?" Because if Arthur really believed it … well, John was still only eighteen, and Arthur was _everything_. If he told John that sleeping with whores was just one of those things men _did_ , he would have to believe it.

"No! I mean— I don't know." He took off his hat and scrubbed a hand though his hair, not looking at John. "I never was the kinda man I was supposed to be."

John thought about Eliza and Arthur, sitting in front of the fire in Eliza's house, Isaac on the floor between them—Arthur smoking while Eliza read out parables from the bible by the glow of an oil lamp. "I think I'd rather be the kind of man you are than whatever this was supposed to make out of me."

Eliza didn't say anything when they got back, but somehow it was clear she knew, had known all along, that nothing would come of it.

"There's nothing wrong with being a romantic, you know," she said, airily, over breakfast the next morning. "Even men sometimes want a love story."

*

Abigail Roberts approached the two of them after the sun had set, looking oddly circumspect, carrying no light and ducking into the dark shadow of the wagon as soon as she was near enough. "I heard Dutch saying he's fixin' to cut you loose," she said, apropos of nothing, before either John or Arthur could open their mouth to ask her purpose. "He don't want you comin' to the new camp."

John looked over at Arthur, quirking an eyebrow. "That sound like good news?" He asked.

"It sounds queer, is what it sounds like," Arthur replied, brow furrowing. "He ain't got what he wanted outta you yet."

"I don't know about any of that," Abigail cut in quickly. "Dutch has his reasons for everything, dumb as they might sometimes be. That ain't why I came over here."

John and Arthur exchanged another glance, suspicious, but Arthur gestured broadly for her to go on.

"You two are bounty hunters. You— you find people. I mean, you find 'em to lock 'em up, but you find 'em."

"It's more that we know the kinda holes rats tend to crawl into," Arthur replied, but his tone was leading, curious. "You want someone found, is that—" and then it apparently clicked in his head at the same exact moment it did for John. "Oh," he breathed in surprise, looking slightly stunned.

"Dutch ain't even _looking_ ," she spat, eyes blazing. "He says we need to get gone, get safe, before we can search, but I don't give a _shit_ about that. He can _hang_ for all I care. _I want my son_."

"And I wish I could give him to you, but … we ain't really in the business of finding missing persons," Arthur said, sounding a bit lost. "We wouldn't even know where to start."

"I can tell you where to start," Abigail replied immediately. "The Braithwaite woman said they gave him to Angelo Bronte in Saint Denis."

John recognized the name. He and Arthur had captured two convicts in Bayou Nwa years back that had turned out to be deserters from Bronte's organization, and he'd insisted on thanking them _personally_ for taking out his trash. "Bronte runs Saint Denis in all but name. He's not exactly the sort of man you want to get on the bad side of."

" _He has my son_ ," Abigail snarled. "Will you find him? When Dutch lets you go, will you find my son?"

They were so, so close to being done with all this, John thought. To being done with Dutch and his gang, done with taking supper with outlaws instead of turning them in. To being done with being tied to all the worst parts of Arthur's past. If Dutch really was going to let them go, they could walk away and not have to look back.

"Yeah," Arthur said, expression resolute, "we'll find him."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The more I write this fic the more I want to write more about Eliza. I might write a companion piece about her and Arthur if I don't find a place in this fic for the story I have in mind.
> 
> As an aside, if anyone would like to suggest me a better summary for this fic, I would really appreciate it. I'm terrible at summaries and don't really like the one it has right now.


	9. Chapter Four, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am deeply sorry for what I am about to do to you.
> 
> ... no I'm not. YAY WE'RE GONNA EXAMINE ARTHUR'S RELATIONSHIP ISSUES SOME MORE
> 
> Sorry this is a bit shorter than other chapters, it took me so long to get it out, and I found a good stopping point, so I didn't want to keep holding onto it.

"You and I," Dutch drawled, startling John out of half-sleep, "need to have a little _chat_."

It was full dark, a moonless night, and judging by the hush around them nearly everyone else was asleep. Dutch was stood over him, fully dressed as if he'd been up all evening, holding a lantern turned down to the lowest possible flame. He gestured sharply when John reached out for Arthur's arm, a clear warning.

"You needn't wake Arthur," his said, voice deceptively casual. "He needs his rest, and he isn't really a party to this, is he?" He turned slightly, not giving his back to John, not quite, but making it clear that he expected to be followed. "Why don't we take a walk?"

This was it, John thought wildly. This was where Dutch took him out to the woods and shot him. At least Arthur would be okay. Dutch had some bizarre possessive streak about him, and he didn't seem like the type to break his _own_ toys.

His thoughts must have shown on his face, because Dutch heaved a put-upon sigh, like John was an unreasonable child, and gestured pointedly to his waistband, his heavy gunbelt absent. John briefly considered whether he could take Dutch Van der Linde in a fistfight.

"Really, this paranoia is very unbecoming," Dutch said, sounding amused. "I don't know how you came by this idea that I am the sort of man to kill someone without cause."

Dutch had threatened his life not even a day ago, backed by three armed men.

Still, he really had very little choice but to go along with it, pushing to his feet and trailing Dutch away from the main camp, towards the lake shore.

"You've put me in a bit of an untenable position, Mister Marston," Dutch said as the walked, his tone mild, conversational. John didn't actually know what 'untenable' meant, but he assumed from context it meant something like _awkward_. After all, Arthur had pushed back against Dutch for John's sake, in front of Dutch's boys, and Dutch had _backed down_. "Any task I give you I cannot trust you to complete, and even if I were inclined to send one of my boys to chaperone you, they'd be liable to kill you on principle. On the other hand, I'm not in the habit of discarding things that may yet be of use to me, or of releasing debts."

"I ain't done anything for you to think I'd double cross you," John argued. "That shit with the Pinkertons had nothing to do with me."

"Maybe not," Dutch allowed, "but that does not mean you haven't been making deals behind my back. I know that Miss Roberts has asked you to retrieve young Jack." John tried to school his expression, but something of his surprise must have shown, because Dutch smirked. "Oh come now," he drawled, condescension suffusing every word, "did you really think there could be secrets from me in my own camp?"

"She's worried about her son," John shot back, feeling oddly defensive of Abigail. "You can't fault her for that."

"Her devotion as a mother is admirable," Dutch agreed imperiously, "even if it has led her to a disappointing lack of faith. Obviously I would never dream of abandoning the boy, but it is true that our resources are currently needed elsewhere. So here is my proposal, Mister Marston: you will find Jack. You already intend to do so, and you know who is in possession of him. You will find him, you will return him to _me_ in Saint Denis, and you will never set foot in our camp again."

And Dutch would ride back to camp with Jack like a conquering hero. There would be no risk to Dutch's boys. Abigail would think that John and Arthur had failed, or that they hadn't even tried, to find her son. Hell, Arthur might even see Dutch's _personal interest_ , his _blessing_ , as proof that Dutch cared about the boy, that he wanted him safe—Arthur had a persistent tendency to give Dutch the benefit of the doubt.

Really, considering how little effort it would cost Dutch, it was kind of brilliant.

"And then we're even?" John asked, suspicious.

"Then, Mister Marston, we are _done_ ," Dutch corrected, "and when I say _done_ , I mean that I do not wish to see your face again."

"And Arthur?"

" _Arthur's_ welcome has never been in question," Dutch replied pointedly. "I have never questioned his trustworthiness. It is only his _judgment_ I have recent cause to doubt."

Like questioning Dutch or defending John were somehow _lapses_ in judgment.

John didn't rise to the bait. "Fine. Like I said, I pay my debts. Where will you meet us?"

"The train station," Dutch said. "Midday, three days."

" _Three days_?" John exploded. "Arthur ain't in any condition for a hard ride, it'll take us a least a day just to _get_ to Saint Denis!"

"Then I suggest you work fast," Dutch responded, utterly unmoved. "Unless you would like to renegotiate? Perhaps you would ride out faster if you were on your own."

Like hell he was leaving Arthur here. "Fine. _Fine_. Three days."

He found Arthur on his feet—barely—when he got back their bedrolls, trying clumsily to fasten his gunbelt with one hand. "The hell are you doing?" John immediately demanded in hushed whisper, pulling the belt away and letting it drop to the ground.

Arthur blinked at him, clearly only just awake, foggy with sleep. "It … I woke up. You weren't here," he said, sounding bleary and confused. In the moment he seemed oddly young, vulnerable, in a way that made John's gut twist. _Arthur_ , he reminded himself. All this shit was for _Arthur_. After everything Arthur had done for him—

But no. That wasn't why he was doing any of this. Arthur wasn't Dutch, and John wasn't repaying any _debts_ to him.

Arthur scrubbed a hand over his eyes tiredly. "I thought that Dutch— well, I don't know what I thought. Where were you?"

"With Dutch," John admitted with a shrug. "Abigail was right. He's cutting us loose in the morning."

Arthur's gaze was suddenly much more awake, narrow with suspicion. "Why?" He demanded. "He drug you off without me, so what's he asking you to do?"

John dropped down onto his bedroll with a sigh. "Nothing we weren't going to be doing anyway."

"That ain't an answer."

John sighed again. "He wants us to find Abigail's kid. Deliver him back to Dutch in three days. He already knew Abigail had asked us."

Arthur cocked his head. "That's _it_?"

"Well there was also some talk about how if he sees my face again after that it probably wouldn't go well for me, but yeah, basically."

Arthur seemed to mull that over for a moment, looking unconvinced, but he finally dropped back down onto his bedroll with a huff. "Thought for sure he'd want blood outta you," Arthur grumbled under his breath, and John laughed lowly, without real humor.

"Can't get blood from a stone, I guess."

*

As they were leaving, pre-dawn only just coming over the horizon, Hosea tried to give Arthur a sizable stack of bills.

"Hosea," Arthur groaned, sounding oddly put-upon, "I don't need this."

"No, and I'm sure Dutch wouldn't be overly pleased that I'm giving it to you," Hosea admitted, "but just—take it. Please. Buy your friend a new horse. See a proper doctor in town." He tried to force the money into a resistant Arthur's hand.

"I can't take—" Arthur started to protest again.

"Christ, son, just take what you're offered. I know we—Dutch, Susan and I—haven't been much family to you in a long while, but there was a time that was different. It wasn't your fault that it changed."

"Of course it was," Arthur replied, bewildered. "I'm the one that _left_."

"So did I, once," Hosea said, "and yes, I came back, but that was because of _me_ , not because trying to have a real life was the wrong thing to do."

"I never said I thought it was _wrong_ ," Arthur immediately responded. "And seemed to me that you had a different opinion about it, back then. Fifteen _years,_ Hosea. You knew where I was."

"Yes, I did," Hosea replied, flatly, "and I _stayed_ _away_. All of this, Arthur?" He waved his hands at the packed up camp, all the worldly belongings of a couple dozen people in a handful of wagons, for the fourth time in as many months, "It's dying out. I'm old—I don't have much left in me anyway. So I reckon I'll stick around and see it through. But you? You got _out_. Don't go letting yourself get dragged back in. It isn't worth it. Take the money—consider it back pay—and don't look back anymore. There's nothing to see here."

Arthur looked unsettled, wrong-footed. "I ain't looking to come back," he said, glancing over at John, "and I don't need your money."

"I know you don't," Hosea shrugged. "Take it anyway."

John knew an act of penance when he saw it. He guessed Arthur did, too, because he finally nodded slowly, tucking the money away in his satchel. Hosea clasped him by both shoulders, delicate on the still-bandaged one, and looked him over, like he was memorizing him.

"You've made me proud, son," he said, calmly. "You didn't do it for me, but you have."

"Jesus, Hosea," Arthur grumbled, knocking his hands away in embarrassment. "You talk like you're dying."

Hosea easily allowed the gravity of the moment to disperse. "We're all dying," he replied, in a glib tone, before he turned his gaze to John, his expression shrewd. "You look after this one, you hear? He ain't got the sense God gave a goose when it comes to looking after himself."

"Reckon I know a thing or two about that," John muttered in reply, shooting Arthur a disapproving look, mostly teasing.

"Right, _I'm_ reckless," Arthur replied. "Remind me how we ended up here in the first place?"

"Sure," John drawled. "It involved you getting kidnapped by O'Driscolls like a little storybook maiden."

And that pretty much ended any sort of serious conversation.

Hosea was the only one to really see them off, but John couldn't fail to notice Dutch watching them quite keenly from the center of the disassembled camp, hat low over his eyes, a cigar clenched in one hand.

*

Arthur's shoulder was bleeding again by the time the got to Saint Denis mid-afternoon, red spotting on his shirt, but he refused a doctor in favor of copious amounts of whiskey.

Arthur wasn't generally a heavy drinker, though he was a frequent one. He had always drunk beer when at home with Eliza (she didn't generally partake) and had let John do the same once he turned seventeen, but the first time he'd see Arthur actual, proper drunk, John had been nineteen.

Arthur had returned home from a long job, late enough that Isaac had already gone to bed, bringing with him a bottle of proper Kentucky Bourbon and, when John asked the occasion, he uncharacteristically pulled Eliza over next to him with a hand on her waist.

"It's our fifth wedding anniversary."

Eliza shoved him off, rolling her eyes. "That was two _weeks_ ago. And it was our _sixth_."

"I knew that," Arthur said, grinning, a clear sign that he'd already had a few in town. "Ain't liquor traditional for that?"

"I think it's _iron_ ," Eliza said, but Arthur was rarely in such an jovial mood, and she couldn't fully hide her smile.

"Oh, well, lemme run back to town, I'll get you a horseshoe."

"What's got into you?" Eliza laughed, not resisting this time when Arthur pulled her up against his chest. "I mean, other than, clearly, 'bout ten gallons of beer?"

"It was _whiskey_ ," Arthur corrected seriously, "which I drank out of a _glass_ in a _saloon_ , because I am a _gentleman_ these days."

"Oh _are_ you?" Eliza said archly, but she was smiling. "And who was _paying_ for all this whiskey?"

Arthur laughed, and reached into his satchel to show her a fat roll of bills. "My lady, you are now married to a _wealthy_ _man_. Four of them O'Driscoll boys had a powerfully bad month, and we're _two_ _thousand_ dollars richer for it."

"Two _thousand_?" John repeated, agape, even as Eliza snatched up the roll of bills, looking equally astonished.

They were all fifties.

"I ain't never seen so much money in my _life_ ," Eliza whispered.

"Jesus, Arthur, what kinda folk did you go after?" John said, knocking up against Eliza's back as he peered over her shoulder, because _Jesus_ , those were real fifty dollar bills. Forty of 'em.

Arthur had moved away to put the bourbon on Eliza's little round kitchen table and retrieve three mismatched glasses from the cabinet. "You're gonna find out," he said, pointed with the hand holding two of the glasses. "Tomorrow we're going into town and getting you some guns of your own—so you stop fucking with the sights on mine—"

"Some of us like to actually _aim_ at the things we're shooting at—"

"—fuck you, my aim is _implacable._ " John was pretty sure he meant 'impeccable'. Shit, he was _really_ drunk. "Probably gonna need a horse, too," he mumbled to himself as he sloshed bourbon into the glasses, "maybe a pony for Isaac if we can get a proper stable built—"

"We could get a phonograph!" Eliza exclaimed, but John was still parsing Arthur's first statement—because guns, a horse?

"Wait, like we're gonna ride out _together_?" John said, gobsmacked. Sure, Arthur had brought him on bounties before, with John riding double and carrying some of Arthur's weapons, but Arthur rarely allowed John in any sort of position where John might actually have to _use_ them, John more a spectator than an assistant or partner.

"Ain't that what you wanted?" Arthur asked, holding out a glass of bourbon to him. "For me to stop treatin' you as a child?"

And as if to prove that he meant it, that he wasn't going to treat John like a little kid, he proceed to allow John to get absolutely shit-faced on bourbon.

John didn't remember being put to bed—or well, he _did_ , but it was mostly a vague impression of Eliza sloppily stroking his cheek and calling him a 'poor little lamb', which was so awkward it didn't bear thinking about—but he couldn't have been out for long, because Arthur and Eliza were still at the table when he blinked awake, the bottle of bourbon having only an inch or two remaining at the bottom, the lantern on the table turned low.

"—get a second bed, maybe John and Isaac could share?" Eliza was saying, her voice slurring slightly. "Hell, maybe a second _bedroom_ , how much could that cost?"

"Whatever you want," Arthur agreed absently. He was leaning back in his chair, sounding half-asleep by this point, and John was fairly certain he hadn't heard a word she'd said.

"Whatever I want, hm?" She replied, and, somewhat unsteadily, stood and dropped herself down into Arthur's lap, still holding the glass of bourbon. John thought back to Eliza's matter-of-fact explanation of how Isaac came to be— _we was young and really drunk—_ and could picture it for the first time, because Arthur _let_ her, dropping his head back when she put her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck. "You know, I always wanted a daughter."

Arthur chuckled, his voice low. "John's asleep not five feet away."

John knew he shouldn't be watching this, shouldn't be hearing it, but he was somehow loathe to break the moment, and desperate to see it—both of Arthur and Eliza so heartbreakingly out of character.

"He wouldn't mind," Eliza replied, "might give 'im a thrill. He's awful sweet on you, after all."

Arthur sat up straight so abruptly that Eliza nearly tumbled off his lap, would have if Arthur hadn't grabbed her at the last moment. "That … that ain't funny, 'Liza."

Eliza giggled drunkenly, clinging to Arthur's shoulders for balance, either not hearing or not caring about the sudden seriousness of Arthur's tone. "Oh, don't get all strange about it, Arthur. Everyone does it!"

"They don't," Arthur said firmly, but Eliza proceeded as if she hadn't even heard.

"Why, when I was sixteen I had the most powerful crush on a trick rider in a Wild West show. Dreamed about she and me living on a ranch and raising horses, riding every day until sunset."

She rested her head on Arthur's shoulder with a wistful sigh, fumbling the bourbon to her mouth and succeeding mostly at spilling it across Arthur's collarbone, until he gently took it out of her hand. "Why didn't you?" He asked quietly. "The … the ranch part, not—"

"Well," she drawled, sitting up again, "as it happens, I made some terrible decisions in the back room of a saloon with a notorious outlaw, and wound up in a family way."

Arthur let out a small, wounded noise. "Eliza—"

"Oh, _don't_ ," Eliza complained, twining her arm's around Arthur's neck, like the lovers they had once been. "You know what I thought the first time I saw you, Arthur Morgan? I thought, that man is going to _ruin_ me, and I am going to _let_ him."

Three weeks later, John and Arthur would come home to a door that was only propped up against the frame, the hinges busted out.

*

John only managed to drag Arthur up to their rented room once the bartender had cut him off. Arthur was stumbling drunk by then, leaning heavily against John just to get up the stairs. It was hard to begrudge him in this instance, the liquor almost _medicinal_ , considering how much pain he had to have been in.

John laid him out on one of the two beds, careful of his shoulder. Arthur grabbed at his collar, clumsily, when John went to stand, and John sighed.

"We're in town, remember?" John reminded him, gently prying off his hand, because John remembered the _rules_ , even if Arthur was too drunk too.

"Whatever," Arthur replied, grabbing at John's wrist, the only part in reach without having to sit up, and sounding remarkably clear for a man who could hardly walk, "door's got a lock, ain't it?"

John gave him a narrow glace, considering. Arthur drunk was always Arthur honest, in the most poignantly fundamental way.

"… Fine." John said after a moment. "Just let me go and lock it, then."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, when Eliza talks about being 'ruined' she's mostly talking about it in the sense of 'loss of virtue', a la [The Ruined Maid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruined_Maid) by Thomas Hardy.
> 
> I hope no one is put off by how much Eliza is featured here ... it's really more to emphasize and explain Arthur's issues some more.


	10. Chapter Four, Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I have a bad habit of finishing a chapter in the middle of the night and then immediately publishing it to get it out of my head, then coming back for minor edits in the morning. And I'm doing it again, because as soon as I finish something I want to share it. It's a thing I have. So here, at 3:30 AM local time, is Saint Denis. And I don't really think it's what anyone was expecting because it's not what I was expecting, either. I hope it appeals.

Saint Denis never sleeps. John remembered hearing that somewhere, and he supposed it must be true, because that racket outside their rented room _never_ _fucking_ _stopped_. Arthur was drunk—and exhausted—enough that he was out like a light, snoring softly in John's ear, but the raucousness below them wouldn't allow John to drop off. By around midnight John twisted out from under Arthur's enveloping arm, resolving to toss back a few himself. Seemed like the only way to sleep through the night in a town like this.

He bellied up to the bar between an old gray-haired drunk and a young blonde-haired drunk and ordered two shots of extremely overpriced whiskey with a beer chaser. Downed both shots with practiced ease and was starting to sip on the beer when the old man next to him started to tilt towards him.

"You seem awful flush, pal," the old man slurred. "You coming from a game around here?"

John spared him a glance—pot-belly, shabby clothes that had once been fine, broken blood vessels on his nose and cheeks. "Nah, got it from honest work," he replied, blandly. "Give it a try sometime."

"S'all well and good for you young'uns," the man slurred back with a sneer, "but when you're my age, you—" he hiccoughed, "—you deserve to do what you _like_."

"You look like you're doing plenty of that," John agreed.

"Wha, you think you're _better_ than me, you—" he shoved at John's shoulder, weakly, but the move was unexpected enough that John stumbled slightly, "—you fuckin' _cowboy_?"

A few eyes were starting to turn towards them, folks always eager for a fight. John had no intention of giving it to them. "Go sleep it off, old man. You'll thank me in the morning."

The drunkard swayed on his feet, face bright red. "Jus' like my fuckin' daughter, lookin' down your nose at—"

" _Daddy_!"

And Jesus goddamn Christ, John thought, wincing, didn't it just fucking figure.

Missus Mary Linton pushed through the crowded saloon and wrapped both her arms around the old drunk's upper arm, clinging like a limpet. "Daddy, what on earth are you _doing_? You _promised_ me—"

The old man—Mister Gillis, apparently—pawed her hands off with a scowl. "You lemme alone, girl."

"You _promised_ me you'd stay in tonight! Just _one_ night, Daddy, couldn't you just give me _one—_ "

Snarling, Gillis raised one hand, his intentions clear; John grabbed his wrist before the slap could land, shoving the man back. Whatever his own thoughts on Mary Linton, there were certain things that were just _unacceptable._ "You're drunk," John said lowly, flatly, "so if you walk away right now, I'll forget that you tried to put hands on this woman."

"Don' you tell me how I c'n treat my own _child_ ," Gillis slurred, lurching back towards John with his fists raised.

John sighed inwardly, and laid him out flat with one punch.

The bar was only silent a moment, long enough to assess that Gillis was not getting back up and that the excitement, such as it was, had therefore passed. People were already turning back to their drinks when John felt a small hand on his elbow, and when he turned slightly he found he was looking right into Mary Linton's big brown eyes.

"… Mister Marston?" She asked, bewildered, and then peered around him, wide-eyed, as if he might be hiding Arthur behind his back.

"Just me, I'm afraid," John informed her coolly.

Mary darted her gaze back to him, sheepish. "Oh! I'm sorry, I just … I thought you and Arthur always worked together."

"We do," John said shortly. "He's asleep."

"Oh," Mary said again, softly, sounding forlorn. She looked down at her father's enormous body—the drunk now snoring loudly—and wrung her hands for a long moment, looking lost and utterly helpless.

John had a sudden flash of the look of disapproval Arthur would be giving him right then, and let out an irritated huff. "Where are you staying?" He asked grudgingly, as he bent and slung the unconscious sot over his shoulder.

It said something about Saint Denis that no one gave a well-dressed woman, accompanied by a filthy range-rider with a snoring drunk over his shoulder, a second look. Mary led them to the Hotel Grand, making a bizarre attempt at small talk along the way—where are your people from, how long have you and Arthur worked together, how long will you be in town ( _Scotland_ , _long enough_ , and _a while_ being the respective answers)—before she eventually cottoned on to the fact that John's clipped answers meant he had no interest in the conversation. They fell into an uneasy silence until they reached the hotel.

"I'd like to see Arthur … should I send a letter?" She asked John tentatively, after John had handed her still-snoring father over to the hotel porter.

"You do what you think is best," John replied, not able to completely hide the sour note in his voice.

"… you don't much like me, do you, Mister Marston?" Mary asked softly, looking unfairly wounded. She'd seemed fiercer with Arthur, but perhaps that was only because she thought she knew the measure of him. To John she seemed more like a hothouse flower, sheltered and delicate and quickly wilting in the face of hardship.

"I liked Eliza Morgan," John replied, feeling a shameful satisfaction in seeing her flinch, "and you ain't Eliza Morgan."

That certainly wasn't the only reason, but it was definitely the only one he was willing to share with Mary Linton.

He'd only been gone an hour, maybe a bit more, but Arthur was awake when he got back to the room, sitting on the side of the bed with his head resting in his good hand, other arm draped limply across his lap, sling discarded on the floor. His eyes shot up when the door creaked open, and the _glare_ he shot John was hot enough to make him wince.

"You keeping secrets from me now, John?" He asked lowly. "'Cause this'll make two nights in a row I've woken up and found you gone off somewhere without me."

And okay, maybe it was a bit suspicious: John vanished without a word in the middle of the night, for the _second_ _time_ , right after Dutch had released them completely out of the blue, giving them a job that Arthur already thought was too easy to be true.

"I went for a drink," John explained. "The damn noise—I couldn't sleep. I shoulda woke you, I'm sorry."

If anything, Arthur's gaze only got darker. "Well, which bar did you go to?" He drawled, tone falsely casual, "Because you weren't in this one when I looked."

John felt utterly bewildered. "Are you _accusing_ me of something?"

"I want to know where you were."

So John told him, though he'd had no intention of mentioning it before. "I ran into your Mary Linton. Got into a fistfight with her drunk father and carried him back to the hotel for her. You can ask her if you like, she said she was gonna send you a letter." When Arthur continued to look at him with that too-narrow gaze, he added, almost offended, "The hell are you getting at? You know damn well that the only secrets I keep are _yours_."

Arthur abruptly deflated, looking chagrined. "I wasn't—I didn't mean that," Arthur muttered, scrubbing a hand across his face. "I just … you were _gone._ _Again._ And Dutch said—" Arthur shook his head, pressed a fist against his forehead like it was aching, "—he just got in my _head._ He always gets in my _fucking head_."

John knew that, of course. Dutch had gotten into Arthur's head before John had ever met him. He just hadn't thought that Dutch had managed to get into it about _John_.

"Well, I don't know what Dutch said to you, because you _didn't tell me_ ," John said after a moment, unable to suppress the undertone of anger, of _hurt,_ "but maybe you could _try_ to remember that he ain't exactly got our _best interests_ at heart. _Jesus_."

John crawled into the other bed, pointedly turning his back on Arthur.

"Look, I said I was sorry," he hadn't, actually, "but why would you— _sneak out_ like that?" John flipped back over so he could glare at the other man.

"I didn't 'sneak out', you asshole. You were dead to the world and I just wanted a _drink_. Should I've woke you up to hold my _hand_? Or maybe you wanted to _escort_ me like I'm your _sweetheart_?"

"Well ain't you?" Arthur said, plainly, catching John completely off guard.

"That's— you don't get to do that," he accused, pushing himself back up to sit. "You don't get to say shit like that to throw me off. I'm _mad_ at you."

"For wanting to know where you _were_?"

"For not _trusting_ me! For letting to Dutch Van der Linde drip poison in your ear about me!"

Arthur looked away, scowling. "What Dutch said to me," he said lowly, evenly, "was that he had _plans_ for you."

"Plans?" John snapped back, unmoved by the revelation. "I heard Dutch say he had a 'plan' half a dozen times while we was at his camp, and it was a goddamn lie every time. He can have _plans_ for me all he likes, but I ain't gonna play along with 'em and _you should know that_."

Arthur was silent for a beat. "… but you're playing along right now, aren't you?" He said softly. "We both are."

John stuttered for a moment, taken aback. "I— that's _different_. This is a _debt_."

"Yeah, and for what?" Arthur challenged. "The thing is, John—I never actually _needed_ rescued. I got _myself_ outta that shit, and if you had stayed in Valentine where I goddamn _left_ you, we wouldn't be here right now."

"So I shoulda just _twiddled my thumbs_ while you were missing? Dutch, he— he saved your life." John argued, feeling abruptly lost by the turn this conversation had taken. Was he actually _defending_ _Dutch_? Or just trying to defend his own choices?

"And if you really believe that," Arthur said, his expression rueful, "then he's as much in your head as mine."

That night, they _both_ went to bed angry.

*

"So how long are you plannin' to be sore at me?" Arthur asked, conversationally, as they walked though the city park the next morning, Angelo Bronte's elaborate mansion looming on the other side.

Arthur was good at holding grudges. Something about his steady nature meant that he could let anger simmer under his skin for months, for _years_ , and never let it out until he was damn well ready. John wasn't like that—all his emotions were on the surface. He burned hot and blew out fast, as Arthur was well aware, and right now it felt like he was trying to call John's bluff, to say that he knew John wouldn't stay cross with him.

He was probably right. Already John felt almost embarrassed about the fight, like he'd made a lot out of nothing; maybe he'd just taken his anger at Dutch, his annoyance with Mary, his frustration with the whole mess of a situation, and thrown it on Arthur because he was _there_.

Then again, hadn't Arthur turned around and done the same thing?

"Let's just—get this done," John muttered instead of answering. The question was disingenuous anyway, just a way to remind John that Arthur thought he was acting like a pouting child.

Bronte was the man Dutch probably dreamed himself to be—a man truly powerful enough to be above the law. Rich as Croesus and feared enough that it almost looked like respect. He had men in government, in the police force, and good old fashioned goons, all at his beck and call. Even for all that, the man himself was skinny, weaselly, dressed in as absurdly ostentatious smoking jacket and a ridiculous cap, even though it was already mid-morning.

They'd introduced themselves at the gate, but Bronte, jackass that he was, greeted them with, "Ah, the Morgans, wasn't it? I never forget a face," as if he hadn't just had their names and story whispered in his ear. "I do not usually take unexpected visitors, you know, but I have not forgotten your past service for me."

Jesus, the man reminded John so strongly of Dutch, it made his skin crawl.

"So," Bronte continued, taking a fat cigar from a box held open for him, "what brings you to me now?"

Arthur glanced at John, because in theory this errand was _his,_ but John deferred to him with a nod, as he always did. Habits of near a decade were hard to break. "We're looking for someone," Arthur said, flatly. "A boy, 'bout four or five. He was snatched up in Rhodes by the Braithwaite family, you know 'em?"

Bronte's expression didn't change, except that his eyes narrowed slightly. "I do. And I also know from whom this boy was taken. So what is _your_ interest in him, hm?"

"Our only interest is in getting him back to his mother," Arthur replied shortly. There were half a dozen men with guns around them, but things like that had never intimidated Arthur. "I'm sure you're not the kind of a man that would keep a child from his mother."

Bronte made a thoughtful noise, sucking on his cigar. "Oh, that would be a most unfortunate thing, a child deprived of his mother. On the other hand, it is also terrible for a man to be deprived of his livelihood, don't you agree?"

"I don't see as the two are similar," was Arthur's dry response.

"Ah, well, to me," Bronte gestured expansively, smoke drifting around him, "my business is my child. And," his voice went darker, more dangerous, " _this_ child's family _destroyed_ my business."

"I don't know anything about that." Arthur tone was curt, almost impatient. "Whatever happened to your _business_ had nothing to do with that boy, and in any case," Arthur gestured mockingly to their lavish, almost gaudy surroundings, "doesn't seem to have set you back by much."

Bronte puffed again on his cigar, but there was something shrewd, calculating, in his expression now. "You certainly have _balls_ , Mister Morgan," he said, lowly, dangerously, the sudden profanity obviously a conscious choice, "to come into _my_ city and speak to me this way."

"I'm only having a conversation with an _honest businessman_ , ain't I?" Arthur replied.

Bronte stared him down for a moment, with that same shrewd gaze.

And then he laughed.

"Look at you!" He exclaimed. "The fearless American! Not like these _stronzi_!" He gestured behind him to his own men, whose faces remained utterly impassive at what was clearly an insult. "Yes, perhaps I give you the boy. But if I _do_ , you must do something for me."

Again, John thought of Dutch. Favors to pay for favors to pay for favors.

Maybe Arthur had the same thought, because his expression instantly went flat. "And what might that be?"

Bronte chuckled at Arthur's obvious suspicion, stubbing out his only half-finished cigar in an elaborate crystal ashtray. "I do not hold grudges, Mister Morgan—there is no money in it. The leader of this … _gang_ ," he rolled his eyes at the word, like it was absurd, "this 'Van der Linde', he is of interest to me. So I give you the boy—this child of his family—and you bring to him a letter from me. Something I am sure he will find most interesting."

John spoke up for the first time, disbelieving. "A _letter_?"

Bronte glanced at him, looking bored. "Should I ask you to kill someone for me? Killing is hardly an uncommon skill here. You? Are _nothing._ I want the man who burned the Braithwaites to the ground. The only unique thing about you Morgans is that you seem to know him, or you know people who do. "

The only unique thing about them was Dutch. Somehow, sickly, it rang true.

"I can't turn down an offer like that," Arthur said wryly. "Give us the letter, I'll _personally_ make sure he gets it."

*

"Are we gonna read it?" John asked, hours later, after they had finally tucked an overly-excited Jack Roberts into one of the hotel beds for a nap.

"I bet I can tell you what it'll say," Arthur replied, from where he was dozing in a cushioned chair by the window, hat pulled down over his eyes. "He wants to use Dutch the way Dutch used us. I mean, it wouldn't say it like 'at, but that's the way men like that _are_."

*

They met Dutch at the train station the next day, midday, as promised.

"It was really fun," Jack was saying, tucked up against Arthur's hip like he weighed nothing at all, "but I missed Mama. We're going back to the camp now?"

"I think you've got a new camp," Arthur answered absently, "and me and John ain't going."

"Oh." The boy looked powerfully thoughtful for a four year old, brow furrowed. "Why not?"

"It's complicated."

"You said that _before_ ," Jack whined, "and I think it really means you just don't wanna tell me!"

John chuckled at that, quirking an eyebrow at Arthur. "He's a smart kid, ain't he?"

"Reckon he must get that from his mother," Arthur muttered.

" _Anyway_ ," Jack interrupted, his high little voice very pointed, "sometimes people at camp are mean to Mama. You're nice. So you should come back and marry her and then she won't be a widow anymore."

John laughed when Arthur stuttered, red-faced, over a meaningless reply. The world seemed very simple through the eyes of a child.

After an hour Arthur bought Jack a green apple from a street seller, and the boy was chewing on it happily, tucked between John and Arthur on a bench, when Dutch finally appeared on his Arabian, looking perhaps a little less polished than usual. He had no jacket—maybe that was just the Lemoyne heat—but his shirt looked threadbare at the elbows, the cuffs unbuttoned.

"Arthur, my boy," he called out as he dismounted, as if John weren't even there, as if Jack were a piece of _luggage_ , "I knew you would not let me down."

"Sure," Arthur drawled, standing slowly, his tone ironic. "Sure, I did it for _you_ , Dutch."

If Dutch recognized the tone he seemed unbothered by it, waving away the comment absently. "Oh Arthur, you know what I meant. And how are you, Jackie?"

Jack wiggled off the bench and went over to Dutch—no running hug, no overt excitement, not wary but not overly eager, either. "Hi, Uncle Dutch. I'm fine. Papa Bronte was very nice."

Dutch blinked, nonplussed. "Papa Bronte?"

"Yeah," John laughed, still sprawled out on the bench, "at least _someone_ out there is willing to play father to the kid."

Dutch seemed utterly unaffected by the dig, bending to heft Jack up into his horse's saddle. "This concludes our business, Mister Marston," he said, without looking back at John, as if he'd meant it _literally_ when he'd said he never wanted to see John's face again. "I think we're done here."

"One more thing, Dutch," Arthur said, holding out Bronte's letter. Dutch half-turned to take it, grasping the other end of the folded paper almost absently, but Arthur held on for a moment when Dutch tugged, pulling the other man's attention, face grave. "After you take this from me," he said calmly, "then we _are_ done here."

The words were mundane but the tone was unquestionably final, enough to make Dutch peer at Arthur with narrowed eyes. "What are you saying, Arthur?"

"I'm saying that I been holding onto my old life, _your_ old life, for too long, and it ain't brought me anything but strife. So I ain't doing it anymore."

John slowly sat up straight, eyes wide, because sure this wasn't—

"Life _is_ conflict, Arthur." Dutch said paternally, condescendingly. "I know it must seem easy to blame me for everything that's happened, but—"

"But nothing," Arthur cut him off. "You killed half of Valentine. I know because _I was there_. You killed most of Rhodes, too—two whole _families_. And then you—" he gritted his teeth a moment, pained, "you threatened to kill _John_. To shoot him right in front of me for something you knew _damn_ well he didn't do."

Dutch gaze, which had been fond to the point of patronizing, suddenly turned cold, shrewd, as he slowly turned it to John. "So that's what this is about." He said, tone deceptively light. "This is about _John_."

"Sure," Arthur agreed, his tone brittle, hot underneath the blandness, "because if something's about me, _it's about John too_."

"I had my suspicions, of course," Dutch continued, as if Arthur hadn't spoken, his voice taking on sympathetic tone, "but I had thought you had left that sort of foolishness behind in your youth. You know that there's no future in that, Arthur. Never has been."

Arthur crossed his arms, unmoved. "Not much future in what you're doing, either," he said, not denying the veiled accusation. "Reckon I'll take my chances."

Dutch sighed, his expression rueful. "Well, I can't save you from your own mistakes, son," he said, as he mounted up behind little Jack, who looked utterly bewildered by the whole interaction. "Your young Mister Marston seems the type to tell you what you want to hear. I can see why that would seem a lot more appealing than someone who tells you the truth, even when it hurts. When you realize the difference, you'll still be welcome in my camp."

"You don't know a single goddamn thing about John," Arthur replied fiercely, having to almost yell when Dutch turned to ride off before he was even done.

John stared at Arthur, a little wide-eyed when he dropped back down onto the bench beside him, sprawling out like he had just been in a fistfight, like he was _exhausted._

"… I'm still kind of mad at you," John admitted after a moment, even as he dropped one hand onto Arthur's forearm, holding loosely.

Arthur snorted. "I didn't say it 'cause of that," he muttered, sounding almost embarrassed. "I just ... finally figured out it was true."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jack's comments, in case you don't recall (because it was a long time ago), relate to when he asked Arthur if his mother was a widow because she didn't have a husband, and Arthur told him it was 'complicated' (chapter six, second section)
> 
> I'm not really super happy with this chapter, particularly the Bronte parts, but I think it got across what I wanted to convey. I always thought that the Bronte task was absolute busy work, that he was playing them, even back then, so to me, him asking almost nothing of John and Arthur makes perfect sense, because he knows they don't really have anything he doesn't already have.
> 
> And if you think that Dutch gave up to easily, you're kind of right, but there's a bit more at play--Dutch can't really fully manipulate Arthur when John is _right there_ , after all.
> 
> Anyway, that's enough meta for one note. If you want more, I'm always happy to discuss in the comments.


	11. Chapter Four, Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please note the rating change. I imagine that, for most of y'all, this is a good thing. =D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've mentioned in comments that I mostly write inspirationally. That means that sometimes things happen that I didn't plan, and I just go with it. This chapter is kinda one of those things. *shrugs* but overall, I'm happy with it.
> 
> Incidentally, I started a new job a few weeks ago, which is why this chapter took a bit longer. Unfortunately future chapters will likely be a bit slower as well, but they _will_ be coming, and this fic will be finished.

Mary had threatened to send Arthur a letter. She hadn't stated it as a threat, but it was. John had resigned himself to that, to _another_ fight, this one about whether or not Arthur should come when she called like an obedient _dog_ , but that wasn't what happened.

What happened was Mary Linton herself waiting for them in the saloon, seated at a little round two-seater table, a petite sherry glass at her elbow, half-full.

Arthur froze in the entryway when he saw her, abruptly enough that John ran into the back of him. John saw her a second after Arthur must have, sitting primly, straight-backed, looking both completely out of place—Mary Linton did not pass time in bars—and at the same time more suited to the setting than they themselves were. After all, at least Mary was wearing modern, fashionable garments, not years-old patched and stained riding gear.

"Oh, for God's sake," Arthur muttered under his breath, swiping a hand over his face.

"We could just go?" John suggested, but by then it was too late—Mary had seen them and was standing, raising one dainty hand in an awkward greeting.

"What the hell," Arthur murmured finally, more to himself than to John, "why not make it two for two?"

Mary wore a peculiar sort of expression when she looked at Arthur. John had noticed it before, in Valentine, but now, seeing it again, he could judge it a pattern—a sort of aching fondness, a bittersweet sympathy. She looked at Arthur like an open wound.

"It's so good to see you again, Arthur," she told him warmly, resting a soft hand on his dusty sleeve. "I didn't expect— well, I mean, you don't usually come this far east, I thought."

Arthur blinked at that, nonplussed. "You been following my career, Missus Linton?"

"A little," Mary admitted, "at least since Valentine. You have a bit of a reputation, it seems." She darted a glance at John and amended, "The both of you, I mean. The 'Morgan boys', though I don't know why you tell folk that you're brothers."

"Well, John here used to stay at home alone with my wife and son while I was out working," Arthur said, a not-so-subtle reminder to Mary of the past she wasn't part of. "It's the kind of thing townsfolk look sideways at if he feller ain't blood."

"… oh," Mary replied softly. She didn't have Arthur's talent for looking unaffected—she visibly paled at the mention of Arthur's family. "Arthur, I never did say … I'm so sorry about—"

"Thank you," Arthur cut her off sharply. "Is there something I can do for you, Missus Linton?"

Mary looked a little taken aback. "Do I have to _want_ something to want to see you, Arthur?"

"I don't know," Arthur replied," do you?"

John caught a flash of something like hurt on Mary's face. "Arthur, _please_ be kind to me."

 _Why?_ John didn't say, though he thought it. What had had Mary Linton really done, in recent memory, to deserve Arthur's kindness?

"I seen you not three months ago," Arthur pointed out, "and you didn't seem to take any interest in anything but what I could do for you. So pardon me for assuming that you sought me out for what you could get outta me."

"Don't you have any fondness for me anymore?" Mary asked, wounded.

"Sure I do," Arthur said easily, "and that's what you're plannin' to trade on, clearly."

Mary was clearly taken aback but, in fairness, so was John. He still vividly recalled their last meeting with Mary, where Arthur had cautioned him to _be polite_ , because Mary was a _lady_. Maybe it was having it out with Dutch that was making Arthur so uncharitable, but John couldn't deny that he kind of liked it.

"… it's my father," Mary finally admitted.

"Right," Arthur said, putting his hat back on. "Well, good luck with that."

"Arthur, _please_ ," Mary exclaimed, reaching out to grab him by the arm as he turned away. "You think I _wanted_ to come to you with this? I don't _have_ anybody else!"

Arthur tensed when she grabbed him, almost looked like he was going to shake her off, but he stopped himself. "I ain't sticking my neck out for Reginald Gillis and that's that. If he'd had his way it woulda been snapped on a gallows years ago."

"I ain't asking you to help _him_ , I'm asking you to help _me_ deal with him!" Mary exploded, looking on the verge of tears. "Ever since mama passed—well, he was never wonderful, but now he's drinking and whorin' every hour of the day. He's sold off nearly all of mama's things—my _inheritance_. He's been talking about taking the money for Jaime's schooling—he'll never afford college without it! Arthur I'm _desperate_. I don't know what to _do_."

John suddenly found himself in the uncomfortable position of feeling _sorry_ for Mary Linton. Being a woman on your own, especially a woman like Mary Linton, who never seemed to have learned real self-reliance, was a hard life to lead.

Arthur worked his jaw a long moment. "You don't even know what you want outta me, do you? You want me to _fix things_ , but you don't even know _how_."

"Ain't no laws against drinkin' or whorin'," John put in slowly, "but he said something to me the other night about looking for card games. Gamblin' is still illegal in Saint Denis, lest you're on a riverboat."

"I don't want him _arrested_ ," Mary said, appalled _._

"Well you shouldn't have come to lawmen for help, then," Arthur replied, "unless you somehow _forgot_ that I don't strong-arm folk no more."

"I don't want you to be a _thug_ for me, my God! I— just want to _confront_ him. Maybe to get back some of the things he ain't sold yet."

"And then what?" Arthur challenged. "Reginald's a grown man—he can do as he likes, no matter how you feel about it."

Mary deflated for a moment, and then took a long, hard breath. "If that's how it'll be that's how it'll be. I already spent too much of my life trying to change men into something they don't wanna be. I'm not doing it again—if daddy wants his whores and his liquor more than he wants his daughter, then that's his choice."

It was probably the most sensible thing John had heard out of her to date. He found himself, strangely, _wanting_ to help her for that reason alone.

Arthur must have thought the same, because after another long pause, he took his hat off again and laid it down on the table. "Fine. Fine, we'll go start a fight with Reginald goddamn Gillis."

*

John didn't really know a lot about fathers. His own had died when he was eight, blind and drunk, and from hearing Arthur tell about his, well, good riddance to the sorry bastard. That said … _Arthur_ had been a father. He'd spent a lot of it on the trail, but he'd done what he could for Isaac when he was home—taught him to read, taught him to ride, taught him to shoot. It wasn't _jealousy_ that John felt over it, because he'd never looked to Arthur as a father figure, but he'd watched Arthur bent over a book with Isaac and wondered why Isaac got to have a father like Arthur and John wound up orphaned, starving in the streets.

Life wasn't fair, was the long and short of it.

Mary's father wasn't dead, which was about all that could be said for him. His left eye was black from John punching him, but he still had the audacity to refer to Arthur as Mary's 'outlaw', which really made John want to black the other one.

"You're living in the past, Mister Gillis," Arthur said, easily, in response. "I went legit a long time ago. Matter of fact, Police Chief Lambert is a dear friend of mine. Maybe I should go have a word with him about you takin' Missus Linton's inheritance and selling it off to pay your gamblin' debts."

"Mary'll have her inheritance when I die. Until then, its _my_ property to do with as I like." Ginnis sneered.

"That was my _mother's_ , you miserable—"

"John," Arthur interrupted, not taking his gaze off Ginnis, "would you mind terribly chasing down that feller and explaining to him the consequences of trading in stolen property?"

"Don't hurt anyone!" Mary yelled after him. John couldn't hear what Arthur said in response, but his tone was sharp.

John didn't hurt anyone. He was a little insulted that Mary assumed he would. Then again, he had punched out her father just a few nights ago.

Ginnis was gone when he got back, near half an hour later—it was just Arthur and Mary, sitting next to each other on a stone bench, Mary's arm wound through Arthur's familiarly. It put John's hackles up, because he knew that Mary was Arthur's real first love. That Arthur had tried to have a wife and family, like a proper man. John, and what he and Arthur had—that was nothing near proper. Nothing near _normal_. Nothing like what Mary Linton could offer him, if she could swallow her own pride enough to offer it.

"—to the theatre?" Mary was saying, as John came up behind them. "Or just … just have a walk together. Arthur—"

"I need to wait for John," Arthur said firmly, though he made no more to discourage her hold on his arm. "He'll have your mama's brooch, ain't we waiting for that?"

Mary was silent for a long moment, and John held back, shamefully curious to hear the conversation play out. "John is … well, I suppose I don't really know him, but he seems steady enough that he don't really need you holding his hand like you seem to be doing."

"Holding his hand," Arthur repeated, with a laugh. "You're right, Mary—you don't know 'im."

"No," Mary admitted. "I would have liked—really, Arthur, I would have liked to. Your wife and son, too. Isaac, wasn't it? Arthur, I—" She took a long breath, pressed herself up against Arthur's arm in a desperately fond way, "I ain't a fool. I know you don't want that life we used to dream of, not anymore. You have John, and I reckon he's a good friend to you. I want … can I be a friend to you, too? I'm not trying to reopen the past, I'm truly not, but I just don't _have_ anyone else, Arthur."

"Her name was Elizabeth," Arthur said after a pause. "Eliza, she like to be called. And yes, Isaac. She weren't … really at all like you. Maybe that was for the best." He sighed, seemed to slump. "God, Mary, I … I loved you. I did. And you didn't love me, not as I was—and I guess that's fair enough, because I weren't on the good side of the law. But Eliza did. Isaac did. _John_ did."

"I did love you—I _do_ love you, Arthur, _please_ don't say that!" Mary insisted, sounding on the verge of tears. "Everything I ever wanted for you, you've got. You've _made_. And you didn't do it for me, and that's _amazing_ , because you did it for _yourself_."

Arthur coughed, looking away. "I didn't, really. I did it for them. Eliza and Isaac and John."

"They're part of you," Mary said firmly. "When you did it for them you were doing it for yourself, too. And I—I never did enough for myself. So I'm going to try to now, but I just … I'd like to have you as friend to me, Arthur. You changed your life, you made it _better_ , and I'd like to do that, too."

That was when Arthur looked up and saw John, standing immediately, Mary's arm dropping from his. There was something like guilt on his face, something like shame, but with the conversation John had heard—well, he found himself still in the strange state of being sympathetic to Mary Linton.

"I've got your mama's jewelry," John said gently, holding it out to her. "Did your father … ?"

"He ran off," Mary replied, taking the brooch from his hand, "and really … good riddance to him now. He don't care a lick about me and Jamie so I reckon I don't care a lick about him." She looked between him and Arthur, thoughtful. "I was askin' Arthur if he might want to stop in and see a show at the theatre. We should all go. What a coup, the frumpy old widow escorted by two such _handsome_ gentlemen."

"We don't—" Arthur immediately stared to decline.

"We'd love to," John cut him off. Because Mary really wasn't anything like Eliza, but somehow, now, she reminded John of her; of a woman Arthur had loved in a way John didn't resent, of a woman who had never really been a _threat_ , because Arthur had loved Eliza, deeply, but he'd hardly ever _wanted_ her, and he didn't _want_ Mary, either, not anymore. Arthur needed, Arthur _should_ have … he should have other people. People other than John and goddamn _Dutch Van der Linde_. Eliza had once told him that no man was an island, including Arthur, but Arthur was the only person John had ever known that you had to _force_ much needed affection on. That you had to _work_ to love, and if Mary Linton loved him—well, John reckoned Arthur needed all the love he could get.

He pulled Arthur into an alley after they left the theatre, shoved him up against the brick in the dark, the only light the dim street gaslights.

Arthur let him, his big hands settling on John's hips, his expression rueful. "Honestly, John, that shit was _your_ idea—you don't got any right to be somethin' like _jealous_ —"

"I ain't jealous of Mary Linton," John cut him off. "You don't want her, you want _me_. You done told me so."

He kissed him, pushing Arthur _hard_ up against the brick wall, Arthur's hands snapping up to frame John's face—not, as John half expected, pushing him off, but pulling him close. "Jesus, John," Arthur hissed, when John pulled away for a breath, "you're gonna get us in trouble—"

"Trouble is my middle name," John grinned, kissing him again, pressing up against him with his whole body, grinding his dick into his hip because Jesus, when was the last time they had actually fucked? Since before Dutch and Blackwater, certainly—John didn't resent it, but shit, it had been a long time.

"We're in the middle of goddamn town," Arthur murmured against John's lips, his fingers still carding through John's hair. He was hard as a fucking rock, John could feel it, Arthur's dick twitching against him.

"So no one would take any notice of the noise," John replied.

"Jesus goddamn Christ," Arthur breathed, "you want me to fuck you in a city alley, is that it?"

"I just want you to fuck me," John replied, grinding his cock against Arthur's hip. "Do it in the town square for all I care, let 'em see."

"Pretty sure that would get us hung," Arthur muttered with a smirk. "All the killin' and robbin' I did back in the day, and in the end I get got for that—"

John kissed him again.

*

John had been in his twenties the first time he'd fucked Arthur. Twenty-one, specifically. They'd already shared a bed before that, for the two years since Eliza died, but it had been chaste, it had been, at least on Arthur's part, _innocent_. Arthur had— he'd told John that he wasn't a child, but there was a part of him that clearly still thought John _was,_ that with Eliza gone, it was Arthur's job to _raise him up,_ and Jesus, that was the last thing John wanted out of him.

The first time he'd kissed Arthur they'd both been drunk, because of _course_ they had.

They'd been in Thieves' Landing, spending the hundred they'd got from their latest bounty on whiskey for Arthur and poker for John, had gotten in a fistfight when one of the players at the table had called John a cocksucker. It had been when Arthur was wiping the blood off his face behind the locked door of their cheap hotel that John had admitted it—"It ain't like they're wrong," and kissed him, foolishly, head swimming with liquor.

Arthur was the only man, the only _person_ , John had ever kissed. Maybe that was sad, maybe it was _pathetic_ , but as far as John was concerned, Arthur was the only person he'd ever _wanted_ to kiss.

"This is a terrible idea," Arthur had said, that first time. He'd said it, and then he'd pressed John down onto the bed and sucked him off like he was being paid for it, scraping John's thighs red with burn from his stubble, bruising his hips with fingerprints because he'd had to _hold him down_ , because every time John had imagined that (a _lot_ ) it had been him on his knees for Arthur, him _serving_ Arthur, and the reverse was almost to much for him to bear.

In the morning, when they were both sober, Arthur had all but _apologized_. "It wasn't right for me to—"

"Arthur," John had cut him off, "I don't give a damn about what's _right_. _I wanted it_. If you didn't then ... then I don't know. Then I'm sorry. It ain't worth losing you over."

Arthur looked at him for a long moment after that, his eyes red and his face haggard. "John," he said finally, "you ain't ever gonna lose me. I promise."

*

"I don't know what's got into you—" Arthur started, when John shoved him down onto the bed of their cheap saloon room, the door already locked behind them.

"I'll tell you what I'd like to get into me," John replied with a smirk, as he unfastened his belt.

"You're a goddamn pervert," Arthur replied, but he was working his own belt as well, arching his hips to shove his trousers down around his thighs.

"Ain't I your fuckin' _sweetheart_?" John challenged as he straddled him, bare knees digging into the bed on either side of Arthur's hips, as he started on the buttons of Arthur's worn blue shirt. "I mean, I'm still waiting on a ring—"

"Oh, then we shouldn't—wouldn't want you to think my intentions are _dishonorable_ —"

John pressed him back against the pillows and kissed him, twisting his fingers into his dark-blonde hair, skimming his other hand down his chest to wrap around his dick. Arthur groaned against his mouth, hand snapping down to grasp John's wrist. "This is— John, this really is a _terrible_ idea— there's folk not ten feet away—"

"They done heard worse, I'm sure," John muttered against Arthur's cheek, twisting his hand against Arthur's grip. "C'mon, Arthur, _please_ —"

It was the please that did it—John actually _asking_ for something usually resulted in him getting it, because underneath everything Arthur really was that easy. He let go of John's wrist and instead wrapped his hand around both their cocks, twisting in a way that made John keen into his collar, muffling himself against Arthur's skin. He bit down on the curve of Arthur's neck, down where it'd be hidden by his kerchief, and rocked against him hard, Arthur's calloused hand dragging almost painfully against the delicate skin of his cock. It was almost too much, too hard and too dry, but God, he wanted it.

"C'mon, c'mon," John gasped into Arthur's throat, wrapping his own narrow hand around Arthur's broad one, pulling him to go faster, go harder. He wished he had the patience to pull back, to get down on his knees, to get Arthur to fuck him, but it had been so long—

He gasped out a curse when he came, wetness spilling between them, feeling like he was being turned inside out. Wrung out like a rag. Arthur twisted his other hand into John's hair and quieted him in a kiss, groaning his own release into John's mouth, belly jerking against John's soft dick when he came.

"… you're a terrible influence on me," Arthur muttered when John finally rolled off to the side, swiping a hand through the sticky mess on his stomach.

"You fucking love me for it," John replied with a laugh.

Arthur rolled up onto an elbow and looked down at him, green eyes hooded, thoughtful. "Jesus, I do. I fucking love you."

It shouldn't have felt like a declaration. Arthur told John that he loved him every day in every other way than with words. But the actual words, hearing them out of Arthur's mouth, his tone serious as the grave—John hadn't realized how much he wanted to hear it until he had.

"Goddamn it, Arthur," John breathed, stunned, and twisted his hands into Arthur's hair to kiss him.

 


	12. Chapter Four, Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter wrote itself real quick . I guess this weekend you get a two-fer!
> 
> Chapter is a tiny bit shorter, but hey, no waiting!

Two days later, a well-dressed Italian tried to give Arthur a gilded invitation to Angelo Bronte's next salon. _Tried_ , because Arthur wasn't having it, shoving the card right back into the man's chest.

"I don't think you understand," the man said, his accent strong. "Signore Bronte does not send invitations, he sends _summonses_. You _will_ attend if he expects you."

"I don't think _you_ understand," Arthur replied, "I got no interest in bowing and scraping to _Signore Bronte_ , and you can damn well tell him I said so."

"People in Saint Denis who make an enemy of Signore Bronte do not tend to last long," the man said, pointedly. "This is his city."

From what John knew, that was absolutely true.

"The hell does he want someone like me at his fancy party, anyhow?" Arthur said to John, after he'd finally run the feller off, utterly unintimidated. "I got three sets'a clothes and not one of 'em is a fancy suit."

He actually only had two, John didn't point out—the clothes he'd been wearing when the O'Driscolls took him were never seen again. Although that wasn't quite accurate, either—Arthur had a whole wardrobe full of clothes in the house in Armadillo. John too, Eliza having made them, but they hadn't been back there in … Jesus, was it really six years? They were probably ruined, moth-eaten and musty. What a depressing thought.

"Bronte's smart," John mused. "He'd have to be to get where he is. Reckon he musta decided there was something else he wanted outta you after all."

"Like _what_?" Arthur said in disbelief. "He said the only unique thing about us was _knowing Dutch_."

Bronte's man was apparently right that he didn't take 'no' for an answer, because after they returned from the stables with John's new Thoroughbred in the early afternoon, there was a new invitation laid on one of the hotel beds, laid carefully on top of a full fucking _tuxedo_. Arthur and John both stared at it for a moment, until John picked up picked up the card and read aloud the handwritten note across the back.

"'Mister Morgan'—not _Misters_ , and only one suit, so I guess only _you're_ invited, Arthur—"

"Ain't I lucky," Arthur deadpanned.

"—'had very interesting meeting with your friend from Holland'—where the hell is Holland?"

"He's talking about Dutch," Arthur said tiredly, slumping back against the wall. "Jesus, of course it was."

"'He believes we three may have matters to discuss'—holy shit, the goddamn _nerve—_ " John snapped, wide-eyed. " _Dutch_ got Bronte to 'summon' you to one'a his parties. _Just you_."

"Yes, thank you John, I'd already figured that," Arthur sighed, "but I still ain't goin', so it don't much matter."

"But why would he ... you _told_ him not a week ago—you said right to his _face_ you were _done—_ "

Arthur chuckled at that, without real humor, "—and Dutch don't see that as a problem. _Dutch_ ," Arthur's tone went lilting, ironic, "can talk me into or outta _anything_."

That had never been completely true—Arthur had always had his limits, but it had definitely once been more true than it was now. "He really think that little of you?" John asked, because that's what it was, wasn't it? Dutch thinking, _still_ , that he knew Arthur's mind better than Arthur did. What had he said before he rode off? Something about someone who tells you the truth, even when it hurts, and John had thought it was just another of Dutch's transparent manipulations, but maybe he _meant_ it. Maybe he really had swallowed so much of his own shit over the years that he truly believed he had Arthur's _best interests_ at heart.

"I'm sure he would tell you he thinks that _much_ of me," Arthur shrugged, "or why else would he _try_ so hard?"

Dutch did seem to have a weird fixation on Arthur, it was true. All those folk in his camp worshiping at his feet, but he just _had_ to have Arthur there, too. Maybe it was as simple as Arthur being the one who got away, the one who had seen all Dutch's pomp and glory up close and still chosen something else.

"Don't worry about it," Arthur dismissed with a wave of his hand. "You got a new horse now—reckon we can avoid this whole mess by just getting' outta town. I'm sick'a Lemoyne anyway—goddamn _swamps_."

John dropped the invitation back on top of the fancy suit, face-down. "Don't gotta ask me twice."

*

They rode out that same evening, Arthur's left arm bound tight against his side despite his protests that he was _fine_ and John was a goddamn mother hen. He hadn't seen it when it was at its worst, and John wasn't taking any chances. It was probably just as well that he had, because John'd had to call for a break after only a few hours, sweat beading on Arthur's face despite the cool evening.

"I ain't that goddamn _precious_ , John, I can ride," Arthur had protested, but he'd taken the whiskey John offered him with little more than an annoyed look.

They'd finished half the bottle between them, and John was considering just suggesting they set up camp, when they both saw the smoke.

"… s' probably nothing," John said, unconvincingly, because really, when had their luck been that good?

"Sure," Arthur agreed, even as he was pulling his shotgun off his saddle, "because plenty of normal, honest folk camp in the middle of an alligator-infested swamp."

"We've camped out here," John pointed out.

Arthur smiled back at him, teeth glinting like a knife-blade in the dark. "Well, we may be honest, John," he drawled, snapping a fresh magazine into his pump-action, "but we ain't exactly _normal_."

Arthur had been laid up for _weeks_ now. John supposed it was no wonder that he was excited at the opportunity to get to work. Arthur, after all, was a simple man. He definitely preferred problems that you could tie up or shoot in the face.

"If you reopen your shoulder firing that," John told him gravely, retrieving his repeater from his brand-new saddle, "you and I are gonna have _words_."

Arthur was still grinning. "You know I brace with my right."

The night was dark enough that they were able to get decently close to the camp without risk of being seen—close enough to see the green bandanas even without binoculars. "Recognize any of 'em?" Arthur whispered, passing John the binoculars with a scowl. As nice as it would be to rush the camp based on the colors alone, wearing a green bandana was not yet illegal in the state of Lemoyne. Lest these folks were wanted specifically, it's be easier leave 'em be.

"No but—they got someone tied to a tree."

"One'a their own?"

"Can't tell. He's—" One of the O'Driscolls knocked the captive's head to the side with a punch, giving John a better view of his face for a moment, and something clicked. "Oh, hell. Arthur … I think I recognize 'im."

"We know 'im?"

John lowered the binoculars, eyes wide. "He's from Dutch's camp."

Arthur grimaced, pressing a fist to his forehead. "Ah, _shit_."

John was near sure of it—the boy tied to the tree, blood dripping down his face and chin in alarming amounts, was that same eighteen or nineteen year old ain't-an-O'Driscoll, Kevin or something—

" _Kieran_. He _introduced_ himself to me. Barely looked old enough to shave, acted like he'd never held a pistol before. Used two hands."

"Shit," Arthur repeated. He took the binoculars from John and watched the camp for a long minute, scowling, rubbing at his shoulder with his right hand. Yeah, Arthur knew better than most the kind of things O'Driscolls were capable of. "Nothin' for it, then. We can't just leave 'im."

"When we die," John grumbled under his breath, "they are gonna write a goddamn _book_ about our life, and _no one will believe it_."

"I'm living it and I don't believe it," Arthur muttered back. "I count four. Probably a lookout in the trees."

"We go in guns blazing they might just shoot 'im," John pointed out.

"They might just do that either way," Arthur replied. "We need to draw a few of 'em off. Get the lookout first, quiet-like, then get 'em to split up."

"We're gonna have to shoot some of 'em, no way to avoid it," John pointed out.

"I know Chief Lambert, and he ain't gonna hassle us for a couple dead O'Driscolls, not if we had cause. That said …" he glanced over at John, eyes glittering, "let's try to take a couple. Saint Denis loves a hangin', after all."

It went almost perfectly. John took the lookout with no trouble, a swift blow to the back of the head taking him down without a sound, and he at least managed to notice the alligator before it took a chunk of him. It worked out well enough—the O'Driscolls obviously assumed the shots were from their own lookout finding a 'gator, two of them sauntering over without any real concern, calling out casual jeers that made them easy to find. John waited long enough for them to suddenly have their attention diverted by the sound of Arthur's shotgun, then shot both men cleanly in the head.

There was one dead O'Driscoll and one live one by the campfire when John drug his one live quarry over, hands bound, starting to stir weakly. Arthur looking completely casual standing over his survivor, shotgun tucked up against his good shoulder. Kieran was curled up on the ground, Arthur's sheepskin jacket laid over him.

"You got any more rope on ya, John?" Arthur called out, when John got into the light of the fire.

"Gee," John replied, patting obnoxiously at his pockets with the hand that wasn't wrapped in the O'Driscoll's collar, "seems I'm plum out."

"Oh well, guess we'll have to shoot this one, too," Arthur shrugged, working the pump on his shotgun. Truthfully, this was probably the reason for what reputation they had—Arthur was a queer sort when he was working, fully aware of how intimidating he was, unphased by danger and violence, and if he said in that utterly bored voice he was gonna shoot you, you damn well _believed_ him.

"You can shoot me, but Colm won't let this go," the feller under Arthur warned. "He wants that boy's _head_."

"What Colm O'Driscoll wants means less than nothing to me," Arthur replied, his voice dropping into a dangerous register, "but maybe if you tell me where he's holin' up these days I'll truss you up real pretty for the Saint Denis law instead'a feeding you to the 'gators."

"Oh ho, Arthur Morgan," John's catch grunted weakly, in a voice that seemed oddly familiar, " _you_ know what Colm does to folk who piss him off."

Arthur glanced up, expression flat, but only for a moment. Then something flashed on his face, something so dangerous that John himself took a step back when Arthur kicked the man on the ground in the head and strode over to grasp the lookout by the _throat_. "Well, well," he drawled, voice black as smoke, "fancy meeting you here."

"… we know this feller, Arthur?" John asked, feeling caught off guard.

"I guess you might not recognize 'im," Arthur growled, "since when we met him he had your face in the dirt with a gun to the back of your _head."_

The voice clicked. This was the spokesman with the Irish lilt, the man who did all the talking when Colm's men had come for Arthur. John had never seen his face.

"I oughta gut you like a fuckin' _pig_ ," Arthur growled.

"Sure," the man said, woozily, head lolling against the grip Arthur had on his throat. "We're dead anyway. Rather be shot by you than flayed by Colm."

Behind them, Kieran made a weak, wounded noise, and Arthur's face wrestled with indecision for a moment, twisting, before he let go, the spokesman immediately dropping to the dirt. "Gag that son of a bitch," he told John shortly, as he grabbed some rope from the O'Driscoll's own tents and used it to tie up their other catch. "Tie his legs, too. Buddy, I am gonna _enjoy_ watching you swing."

*

Kieran was … well, he was alive.

They'd gouged out one of his eyes, yellow fluid crusted around the socket. John had thought at first they'd cut out his tongue, as well, because of all the blood, but no—they'd _forked_ it, sawing it in half as far back as a knife could reach. O'Driscolls liked their symbolism, it seemed. They'd beaten him, too, obviously, broken a couple of his fingers, some ribs, but the _disfigurement—_ it was so much worse then mere violence, so much more _hateful_ , it turned his stomach.

Whoever'd had Arthur hadn't touched his face except to beat it in. Like they _respected_ him more.

Or maybe Colm just wanted to make sure Arthur was still able to talk.

Kieran couldn't talk, but he'd been aware, sitting up in the saddle behind John on their slow ride back to Saint Denis, face covered in nearly all the bandages Arthur had in his kit, one remaining eye peering out, bloodshot. He'd wept when he finally recognized them, moaning unintelligibly, old and new blood streaked across his mouth and chin. He shook the whole ride, fingers trembling even where the were clenched into a fist in John's shirt. He groaned occasionally, tried to speak with his mutilated tongue, and Arthur spent the whole ride with his knuckles bone-white from how hard he was gripping the reins, teeth clenched. John was hardly any better, feeling as shaky as Kieran, like there was ice down his spine.

"Oh, he'll live," the Doctor said, his tone odd, almost rueful, once he had Kieran in his chair. "If you want the truth—whoever did this wasn't trying to kill him. They _wanted_ him alive for it," and John kinda wanted to be sick. "We'll sedate him and take out the rest of the eye—it'll fester otherwise. Tongue's already starting to scab over, but I may still be able to stitch it back. Set the fingers—the rest of it will just be time. Excuse me, I need to get my kit."

He left the both of them standing over the bloody, bleeding boy, Kieran's head lolling back against the chair, tears still dripping from his eye.

"Kid," Arthur said after a long moment, his voice as tight as John had heard it, "you need to get outta here and go East. Get on a train and don't get off 'til you're somewhere you never heard of. You hear me?" Kieran blinked up at him, eye cloudy, but he reached out, grasped weakly at the loose fabric of Arthur's trousers. Arthur reached into his satchel, and John was somehow not at all surprised when he pulled out the fat stack of bills that Hosea had given him. "You take this, and you go. And kid?" He put a hand on Kieran's shoulder, pushing him back against the chair, leaning down to meet his eyes, " _D_ _o not go back to Dutch_. I don't care how safe he said he'd keep you. You know now he lied."

It weren't Dutch that did this, John didn't say. He and Arthur both knew what old bruises looked like. Kieran's oldest were at least a week. While Dutch had been playing games and finagling them invitations to fancy parties, one'a his supposed _own_ had been being _mutilated_. Either he hadn't known or he hadn't cared, and frankly, either was too much to think about.

"They're all going to die," Arthur said bleakly, looking haunted, when they were finally out on the street. "Every single goddamn person at that camp is gonna die. You think Sean MacGuire was the first? Dutch lost two people up in the Grizzles, folk I never even _met_. Another'a his died in custody. _They're all gonna fucking die_."

John didn't say anything to that, because, honestly, he didn't even think Arthur was _wrong_. He just didn't know what the two of them could possibly do about it, or if it was even worth the risks to _try_.

Arthur sighed after a long moment, swiping a still-bloody hand over his face. "We— I need to write a letter."

John blinked. "Who the hell you need to be writing a letter to _right now_?"

"Hosea," Arthur said sharply. "To tell 'im we found Kieran dead in the Bayou and gave him a proper burial. _To make sure they don't look for him_." Arthur sighed again, "And then Dutch'll probably try an' write back, but who cares. He obviously knows where we are."

"What we _need_ is Colm O'Driscoll," John pressed. "It's gonna get back to his ears that you're back. We might as well just go for him first—and we got two real, live O'Driscolls right now in the city jail. One of 'em apparently high up enough to do a _lot_ of Colm's dirty work."

"I ain't afraid of Colm," Arthur muttered. "I just—don't want to _deal_ with _any_ of this!" He finally exploded. "What the _hell_ has happened to our _lives_ , John?"

"Dutch happened!" John exploded back, overly loud in the empty nighttime streets. "He happened to the whole goddamn state! You want this _over_? You want his camp not to _die_? Then he needs to be on a _gallows_ and _you know it_."

" _You_ went to him for help—"

"And I'd do it again, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong now."

Arthur breathed heavily for a long moment, fists clenched. "You ever been on a gallows, John?" He asked, lowly. "You ever had someone cinch a rope around your neck fixin' to _punish_ you for your _sins_? Because if you tell me Dutch deserves that, why don't I? Ain't I been _helping_ him this whole time?"

"Shut up," John snapped, instantly. "Just— _stop_. How would _Eliza_ answer that question, huh? How would _Isaac_? How would _Mary_ , for God's sake? Maybe there is no good and evil and we're all damned, but I'm not going to stand here and listen to you pretend you're the same as _Dutch Van der Linde_. You— you don't want him to hang. That's— it ain't _fine_ , but I get it. But I don't see this endin' any other way, and you tryin' to climb up beside him ain't gonna stop it."

*

John _had_ been on a gallows, once.

Not a proper one, not sent from a jail, because even the harshest jail around would probably have hesitated to hang a twelve-year-old. But the homestead had a tiny little construction, like a stage, under their tallest oak, and the three men (boys, really, one of them maybe one three years older than John himself) that tossed the rope over the branch, that held him still for the loop around his neck, hadn't much cared about his age. They'd only cared about the watch and pearl necklace they'd found in his pockets. Never mind he was filthy and clearly starving _child_. He was a thief, and thieves got _hung_.

It had been a preacher that stopped them, just as they were about to shove him off. John had never been one for religion, but he would say that it had done that much for him. He'd run them off with a bible, yelling about sin and stones, and lifted the noose from John's neck with bloodless hands.

Then he'd put a gun in John's hand and told him to be more careful the next time. Come to think of it, he might not have really been a preacher at all.

John had kept that gun for years, had used that gun to kill the man that got him his bounty, a back-alley drunk who wanted things not for sale. He'd dropped it, after, sick, and never found it—he was unarmed when Arthur found him, weeks later, cowering in the woods.

The next time he held a gun it would be one of Arthur's.

 


	13. Chapter Four, Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a lot of character and set-up and not a lot of action, I'm sorry, but then again--that's kind of how I am in this fic in general, and I hope to make up for it some when I get to some of the more exciting story missions in this chapter of the game (and I think you all know which ones I mean).

 

> _Dear Hosea,_

> _I write to inform you of the fate of a member of your camp. John tells me the boy's name was Kieran, though he did not know a family name. We found his body in an O'Driscoll camp in the Lemoyne swamps. I am informed that he was once associated with them, but I will tell you that it was clear from his condition that he had not been a welcome guest. I hope it gives you some comfort to hear that we provided him with as proper a burial as we could._

> _I will no longer be corresponding with Dutch, so perhaps you might impress upon him that a hole in the ground and a wood cross will likely be the future of the rest of the camp as well, if he does not change course._

> _You told me not to look back. I'm telling you to think about the goddamn future. For the rest, if not for yourself._

> _-A_

*

"We don't actually _have_ to deal with any of this, you know," John said, aiming for a light tone, after Arthur had left the letter at the post office. They were smoking by the pier, perched on a crate with their knees knocking together, looking out over the water. It was deceptively peaceful, a cool breeze over the harbor and the gentle susurration of the waves as the sun came up.

Arthur gave John a suspicious look out of the corner of his eye. "How do you mean?"

"We could go back to West Elizabeth. Hell, we could go back to _New Austin_. Ain't none of this gonna follow us that far."

"Leave 'em to their fate, like," Arthur said pointedly, and John grimaced.

"I said this to you before, Arthur, but it ain't really our job or even our _place_ to try'n _save_ all those folk. If they even _wanted_ saving, which I reckon they don't."

"This ain't about what our _job_ is, John, Jesus Christ," Arthur said, annoyed.

"What _is_ it about, then?" John asked, genuinely curious. "I'm serious, Arthur. There are poor unfortunates all over this city. You really feel you gotta play good Samaritan, there's plenty'a folk more deserving than a gang fulla outlaws. So let's go save _those_ folk—"

"You know full well what this is about, even if I ain't good at sayin' it," Arthur cut him off. "Those folk in that camp, that's _me_. That's me if Dutch hadn't let me go, or if Eliza wouldn't'a had me. Maybe _you_ , too, if someone like Dutch had picked you up instead'a someone like me." Arthur hurled his cigarette into the water with an unnecessary amount of force, scowling. "So, right, maybe I ain't _good_ , if only wantin' to help those what _deserve_ it what makes ya _good_. I ain't never _deserved_ nothin' neither, but here I am."

"So what I'm hearing," John shot back, not angry but _frustrated_ , "is that you want to _save_ all these folk from Dutch, which they don't even want, and you want to do without Dutch getting killed or sent to the law. That about right?"

Arthur gritted his teeth, fisted his hands on top of his thighs. "I don't—when you put it that way. Makes me sound like some kinda idiot."

"Well maybe that's because you—"

"Mister Morgan," a voice interrupted from behind them, "I had thought that was you."

"Oh for—" Arthur snapped, shoving to his feet and turning on his heel. "The hell you want, Milton?"

Agents Milton and Ross stood behind them on the sidewalk, Milton raising his hands, palm-out, in a placating gesture. "Now now, Mister Morgan—on this occasion our meeting is a pure coincidence. We had business in town, and when I recognized you, I thought I might inquire after your health."

"My _health_?" Arthur repeated, incredulous. John took to his feet as well, settling a step behind Arthur's shoulder, expression wary.

"Well, the last time I encountered your friend," Milton tipped his head to John, "he seemed to believe you were in dire straits. Something about Colm O'Driscoll and a kidnapping." Milton looked Arthur up and down pointedly—there was nothing now that would tell someone at a glance that he had been injured at all. "You don't seem to have suffered too badly from his hospitality."

"Yeah, we had a grand old time," Arthur snapped. "You didn't stop to exchange _pleasantries_ with me, Milton, so spit it out or move along."

Milton and Ross exchanged a brief glance. "Well, it may be the case that Dutch Van der Linde has been seen in town. Seems he might be planning something big."

"Dutch is always planning something _big_ ," Arthur replied shortly, dismissive. "From what I been reading in the papers, doesn't seem to have been working out so well for 'im. Anyway, it's nothing to do with John 'n me."

"And yet we constantly seem to find you right around where Dutch is working his latest angle. Why is that, Mister Morgan?"

"Golly gee, you're right!" Arthur exclaimed. "Why on earth would bounty hunters be where there's a buncha expensive criminals? Don't make a _lick_ of sense, does it, John?"

"It's almost like we want to earn a living, or something," John agreed, right on cue.

"Hmm," Milton hummed, expression unimpressed. "That argument would be more persuasive if you'd _ever_ brought in a member of the Van der Linde gang for their bounty. You haven't—I've looked. It's almost as if you're avoiding them, and again, I have to wonder—why _is_ that, Mister Morgan?"

"All right," Arthur grunted, "I just ain't in the mood for this right now, so if you got somethin' on me, Agent Milton, _arrest me_." Arthur held his hands out to his sides. "Am I under arrest?"

"Mister Morgan, you misunderstand me," Milton replied, affecting surprise. "You and I are both on the side of law and order, are we not? I'm simply trying to utilize a _resource._ You rode with Dutch, after all. Surely you must have _some_ insight into the man's _mind_."

Arthur gave Milton a long, narrow look. "What the hell," he said flatly, "makes you think I have _insight_ into Dutch, a man I ain't run with since I was a kid? Hell of a lot changes in fifteen years, Agent Milton. The man I ran with ain't the man you're looking to catch."

"You really expect us to believe that you haven't spoken to Dutch in fifteen years?" Milton said, almost laughing. He glanced over to Ross with a raised eyebrow, and then nodded to where John and Arthur's horses were tied. "Your horse is a beautiful animal. I saw one just like it the other week at a camp at Clemens Point, outside of Rhodes."

John felt his blood run cold. Arthur went very still in front of him.

"That so?" Arthur said carefully.

"Oh yes," Milton said mildly, cocking his head. "The plaits in her mane are quite distinctive."

"If you got somethin' on me, Agent Milton," Arthur repeated slowly, voice cold, "arrest me," and for a second John worried that Milton actually might. Ross was fingering his pistol, looking bored, but Milton's expression was flat and calculating. He wanted something out of Arthur just as bad as Dutch did, both of the men somehow convinced that Arthur was the key or the weak link or _something_. It was _exhausting_ , and John really wished Arthur would just follow his advice and _leave_ , because otherwise they were going to just keep winding up in even deeper shit.

Maybe it was selfish, but John didn't have Arthur's connection to Dutch, and he didn't identify with Dutch's followers in the way Arthur did. He cared about them only to the extent that he knew that _Arthur_ did, and frankly, he kind of wished he'd _stop_.

Except that was kind of like wishing Arthur would stop _being Arthur_.

"I could," Milton said finally, tone cool. "The US government has given our agency _extensive_ police powers. I could have you in front of a judge in less than an hour. They'd be _very_ interested in some of the evidence I have accumulated. On the other hand, I'm thoroughly convinced that throwing you in jail will not in fact encourage you to be any more forthcoming. You simply aren't the _type_. Perhaps we should aim our efforts at someone more _reasonable_."

Milton arched an eyebrow at John, and John bristled in response, baring his teeth in something more like a snarl than a smile. "Kiss my ass," he said, brightly.

"Charming," Milton drawled. "Dutch Van der Linde _is_ going to hang, if he lives long enough to go to trial. That's inevitable now. Who goes with him remains to be seen. Think on _that,_ gentlemen," Milton advised, tipping his hat cordially, and he and Ross turned their backs to them, heading back to the streetcar.

"I mean," John said, under his breath, once they were out of earshot, "I don't know that he's _wrong_ on that, Arthur."

"Don't— I don't want to start this conversation back up again, alright?" Arthur ground out, shaking out a new cigarette almost violently. "I know what you think about it. You ain't exactly been subtle. Just—fucking follow him, then. Give Dutch up, Christ, give _me_ up, just—put me outta my goddamn _misery_. _Fuck_."

John blinked, taken aback. "I didn't— I wasn't trying to—"

"I can't bring death on folk who saved my life," Arthur hissed, lighting a cigarette with shaking hands, "I just _can't_ , don't matter how long it's been. What kinda _gratitude_ is that, huh? Life for a life?"

"Arthur," John wheedled, and he really hated to trade on affection like this—it felt manipulative, like something Dutch would do, but it was also something John knew might actually _hit_ Arthur, "what about _my_ life? I was right there with you at Dutch's camp. You ready for me to be up on that gallows with you?"

" _Jesus_ ," Arthur cursed, face down-turned. "John, that— I would _never_ let that happen."

"I don't know where you got this idea that you could _stop_ it, that you can stop _any_ of this shit," John pointed out.

"John," Arthur said, tone grave, "if it _ever_ comes to that you better goddamn _sell me out_."

"I can't bring death on someone who saved my life," John repeated Arthur's words, crossing his arms. "What kinda _gratitude_ is that?"

"Okay," Arthur breathed after a long moment, looking away. "Okay. Point taken."

*

John and Arthur rarely talked about Eliza. They _never_ talked about Isaac.

Isaac was … Isaac had been a child. Children were very far outside of John's realm of experience, even when he'd been one himself. The first few nights he'd spent with Eliza he'd been _terrified_ of little Isaac, like he might break him without even trying, until Eliza had picked the boy up and shoved him into John's arms one evening, telling him 'the boy won't break', even though John still wasn't quite sure that was true.

"Why's your hair like that?" Isaac asked after a long moment, frowning. John hadn't cut his hair since he was twelve, it was below his shoulders then. Something in him took offense, despite the fact that Isaac was literally four years old, and he scowled.

"Why's your _face_ like that?" He replied.

Isaac slapped one of his chubby little hands against his cheek, expression grave, as if he were seriously considering the question. "Mama says I look like my Pa," he told John seriously. "She says he's got a sour face."

John thought back to the expression Arthur had worn when he'd rode them back to Eliza's house, and had to admit that was the case.

In all honesty, John had probably spent more time with Isaac in the years before he— _before_ , than Arthur had. Arthur was on the trail at _least_ five days out of ten, but when he was home—

When he was home, he was he center of attention for every single person in that house.

Eliza would fuss over him, demanding to see any injuries he'd sustained and to re-treat them, because apparently trail medicine was not sufficient for her. John would always want stories, like he was a child himself—he wanted to hear Arthur's exploits, about the gunfights he'd had and the folk he'd captured. John suspected that Arthur embellished things for his benefit, but that was fine.

Isaac—all Isaac ever seemed to want was _affection_. For all Arthur was a stoic, untouchable man, Isaac would crawl into his lap the moment he returned and Arthur would let him—carried the boy around on his hip nearly everywhere until he got too big for it. Brought him gifts every time he came home, whittled toys or books or _something_ , because it seemed he could never come home empty-handed.

One time Arthur had forgotten his hat when he left on a trip. Isaac, all of six years old, had refused to take it off except to sleep. There was something about Arthur, some charm or charisma, that they all felt. He was a dour, serious man, but none of them, not John, not Eliza, and certainly not Isaac, ever doubted that he cared. He just had a very particular way about showing it.

Arthur had given up his entire old life to have them. John hadn't understood that back then but he thought Eliza might've—she'd always told Isaac how much his father loved him during Arthur's long absences.

John wasn't Arthur's son, and Eliza wasn't his mother, but after a few years she'd started including him in the reassurances, "Your Pa goes out because he needs to makes sure you and John have what you need. Everything he does, he does for you."

She never included herself in the list of people Arthur was looking out for. Eliza was— Arthur had loved her. _John_ had loved her. But he sort of thought that she had never really loved herself.

Maybe that was why she and Arthur had worked—they were both so the same in some ways.

"If we didn't need as much," Isaac had replied to her, earnest in the way only a child could be, "would Pa be here more often?"

"That's not—Isaac. Baby. You love your father as much as you can when he's here, and you love him in your heart when he's not, all right? Don't he always come back to us? That's enough."

Eliza Morgan was a practical woman. She took what she was offered and didn't ask for more.

Isaac had sniffled at Eliza's reply, fighting back tears in a way that made John feel oddly panicky. "Can I go with him, when I'm older?"

"… of course you can, baby," Eliza said tightly, looking on the verge of tears herself at the thought. "I'll— I'll be here. I'll always be waiting for you. Ain't that what mothers are for?"

John had never had a mother. He'd never had someone who wouldn't want him to go.

"We just need to teach you to shoot," John said from where he was sat by the fire, "and you can come, too. The Morgan family bounty hunters."

"So you're a Morgan now, are you?" Eliza said after a pause, tone carefully even, though her eyes still looked wet. "You know, I had to get _married_ to be a Morgan, and here you just stumbled into it."

"I was _kidnapped_ into this family, madam," John shot back, only because he thought it would make her smile, and it did, Eliza rolling her eyes and turning back to the kitchen sink.

"Would you, though, Ma?" Isaac pressed, as though it had been a serious discussion. "Would you come with us? Then we could all be together all the time."

"Oh, you'd get sick of me soon enough—always telling you to comb your hair and wash your clothes. No," she shook her head slightly, dunking her hands into the wash-water, "you'll find yourself a wife someday, and you'll have _her_ with you all the time—lest you're a wanderer like your father—and that's as it should be. I—" she shook her head again, and murmured, almost too low to hear, "mothers are made to have broken hearts."

"If my boy rides out with you and Arthur," Eliza had said to John that same evening, "and he dies out there, you best never show your face here again, or I will goddamn _kill_ you, I swear to God. And I'd tell Arthur the same."

The irony, the _tragedy_ , was that Eliza was wrong, and Isaac would never break her heart that way. Isaac would never ride with Arthur, or find a wife, or leave her. He wouldn't get the _chance_. And Arthur—John had no doubt in his mind that Arthur would have died to protect Isaac, but he'd never gotten that chance, either.

*

"Milton, he— if he wanted me, he would'a taken me," Arthur told John, as they walked their horses back to the saloon. "I ain't gonna worry 'bout him. I'm … look, John, this bullshit party of Bronte's … I think I'm going to go."

"What? _Why_?" John demanded. "To see Dutch one more goddamn time? You know that's what _he_ will think."

"Yeah, well—I can't be worryin' about what _Dutch_ will think, can I?" Arthur shot back, pointedly. "Look, we need _information_ —"

"No we don't!" John argued back instantly. "What we need is to not get sucked back into Dutch's shit, and that's _exactly_ what will happen if you show up where he is! Use your goddamn _head_ Arthur!"

"I am," Arthur said firmly, not even angry. "I am not trying to get back in good with Dutch, that is _not_ what I'm saying. But I'm not ready to write off all those other people. All those womenfolk, and dumb boys like that Kieran or the colored boy, they ain't real outlaws. And Jack Roberts, he ain't had _no_ choice in bein' there. They could have a _chance_. And there ain't anyone else out there that gonna try to give it to them if I don't."

John gritted his teeth. Sometimes he really wished that Arthur was _actually_ as mean as he sometimes acted. It had _always_ been caring too much that got the man in trouble. "And what if I said that I was leaving with or without you?"

Arthur looked lost for a moment, conflicted, eyes searching John's face in silence as if trying to gauge if he meant it. "… _are_ you saying that?"

John jerked his gaze away from Arthur's, mouth twisting in a grimace, and crossed his arms over his chest. "I … damn it, Arthur, we got Colm hanging over our heads, Milton breathing down our necks, who _knows_ what Bronte could be up to, and Dutch ain't exactly a friend to us anymore, not that he ever was to _me_. The only thing that makes _sense_ is to leave. Ain't you just told Kieran _exactly that_?"

"I know," Arthur said quietly, sounding almost guilty, " _I know_ , all right, but I am who I am, I can't just turn my back on this and pretend its got nothing to do with me."

John huffed out an annoyed breath, hands clenching into fists on his sleeves. "I— goddamn it, you know I ain't gonna go without you, you asshole. But look, if you, if _we're_ really gonna do this, if we're gonna at least try to give some'a these folks a way out, we need to be _really goddamn careful_. And that means we're going to make an _actual plan_ and you are gonna fucking _follow_ it." John scowled back at Arthur's bright, stunned expression, unclenching his fists to punch Arthur in the shoulder, hard. " _I mean it_ , Arthur. We can't stumble our way through this, we'll end up shot or hung for sure."

"No! I mean, I know, you're right." Arthur replied quickly. John had followed Arthur's lead pretty much his whole life, but Arthur wasn't a _planner_ , and … well, John wasn't really either, but at least he was a little more _objective_ about Dutch and Dutch's shit.

"… so when am I gonna hear about this plan?" Arthur said after a pause, and John huffed, glowering.

"When I think it up, all right? Jesus," he muttered. "Though it'd help if we even knew where they were camped now."

"Shady Belle, its near Bolger Glade," Arthur replied easily, giving John an odd look when he appeared surprised. "John. Did you really think Dutch didn't tell _me_ where they were going? You _know_ how he is."

All right," John said, pausing to pinch the bridge of his nose. "All right. So we know where they're camped, and we know where Dutch is going to be tomorrow night. Probably bring at least a couple'a his fellers with him too, right? I mean, man loves an audience. So we—while they're at the party, we go to the camp. We see how they're set up, and if we can, if it ain't likely to get us _shot_ , we talk to one'a the women … Abigail, maybe, or that Adler woman. Neither of them seemed to keen on Dutch. We see if—if they even _want_ our help, and if they don't they _don't_ , all right?"

Arthur was nodding along until that last part, his lips suddenly turning up in distaste. "And if they don't we just move on, like? Leave that tiny little kid who already done been kidnapped once before—"

"Arthur," John said firmly, because he damn well knew why it kept coming back to the _kid_ , "Jack ain't Isaac."

Arthur went very still. " _Don't_ ," he said lowly, but John ignored it.

"He _ain't_ , Arthur. You ain't his father."

"He ain't _got_ no father, that's what Abigail said, weren't it?" Arthur snapped. "Nevermind that a blind fool could tell that the boy's the spitting image of _Dutch_."

"He's got a _mother_ , and if she wants our help we'll help 'er, and if she don't—then maybe she just don't _trust_ us, and telling her what to do with her own kid don't seem likely to change that."

Truthfully, John did honestly believe that Abigail would want her son out. Everything he'd seen of her said that she had one foot out of the camp already, the women ambivalent to her and the menfolk suspicious, like they knew it too. He just wasn't sure that she'd want _them_ to be the ones to make it happen. They were still virtual strangers, after all, and they were a sort of lawmen while she was a sort of an outlaw, and anyway, who knows what Dutch had said about them to his folk, once they were gone.

"Or did you just wanna _kidnap_ him the way Bronte did?" John pressed, when Arthur's scowl didn't fade. "Maybe you could teach him to call you _Papa Arthur_."

John said it piss him off, because sometimes fighting with Arthur was the only way to get _through_ to him, but Arthur just looked away with a rueful expression. "Yeah, well, I ain't never doing _that_ again, that's for sure," he muttered.

"Yeah," John agreed, feeling utterly wrung out, because _Jesus_ , sometimes the weight of all Arthur's _history_ was _exhausting,_ "yeah, I wouldn't, neither."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a meta note, this is John's response to things getting more difficult than he wants to deal with--he _leaves_. I wanted his insistence on getting out of dodge to evoke his year long absence, the difference here being that he's unwilling to do it without Arthur, since his motivation here isn't independence, it's simplicity and safety.


	14. Chapter Four, Part Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jeez, Ch. 4 is taking forever for me to get through--I guess because so much of the setup for the rest of the game happened there.
> 
> And I did warn y'all that chapters are taking me longer because of my (shitty, underpaid) new job, but I am still working on this fic and am committed to finishing it.
> 
> This chapter is a bit saccharine in places, but I really kinda like it for that reason, so I hope you do to!

John had still been nineteen, but on the cusp of twenty, the first time he'd had any part in Arthur doing 'favors' for Dutch.

At that point, John mostly remembered time as _how long since_ , and it had probably been five months _since_ Eliza and Isaac. Four months after Dutch had brought Arthur their O'Driscoll assassin, dropping him at their feet for Arthur to _exact justice_ upon, as if there were any justice in a situation like that. Perhaps that _gift_ had been why Arthur had agreed to help, perhaps it had been a desperate need to reconnect to _family_. John wouldn't know, because he hadn't even known it was a favor for Dutch until _after_.

All he'd known was that Arthur had got a tip on a big-name bounty out in Lemoyne. It was John's first time that far east, and he'd had a strange feeling about it, even then—Arthur had a strange determination when they rode out, something very different from the wandering apathy he'd displayed the past months. They'd caught the man totally by surprise, at his own mother's funeral, for God's sake, and turned him into Sheriff Gray.

Sheriff Gray, being the sort of man he was, insisted they celebrate the capture with liquor, and lots of it. Arthur had sat nursing a single glass with the lush for hours, filling the Sheriff's glass any time it got less than half full, and the Sheriff and his deputies had been well and truly drunk when the sound of gunshots rung through the town, right after sunset.

Gray and his boys managed to stumble to their feet only quickly enough to see three riders galloping out of town, but Arthur hadn't been watching the riders.

Arthur had been looking over to where a woman was wailing inconsolably over the body of a well-dressed man sprawled out on the steps of the bank, a pool of blood spreading underneath him. They'd seen plenty of death, the both of them, and so John hadn't understood why _that_ dead man, in particular, had made Arthur look so haunted.

Not until they rode out to Mattock Pond and found Dutch Van der Linde: standing next to the water, casual as you please, his horse's reins in his hand.

"What the hell was that?" Arthur had demanded, before he even got off his horse. " _No blood_ , you told me— _clean and clear_ , you told me!"

"Arthur," Dutch wheedled, his tone almost disappointed, "I regret what happened in town. I didn't plan it to."

"A man _died_ while I played _lookout_ for you!" Arthur snapped back, and that was when John realized it—Arthur's tip had come from _Dutch_ , and the drinking with Gray? That had been to keep him and his men off the streets, to _slow them down_ when Dutch went for the bank. _Jesus_ , John had suddenly thought, this whole time they had been _working for Dutch_.

"The hell did you drag us into, Arthur?" John growled to him, eyes narrow.

Dutch, abruptly, looked amused, almost _smug_ , while Arthur looked away, jaw taught. "You mean he didn't _tell_ you?" Dutch said, feigning shock. "Arthur, really, how _duplicitous_ of you."

John hadn't known what that word meant—he suspected that was the point—but the teasing tone was clear, mean-spirited but somehow still affectionate. Like the whole affair was one big _joke_ that only Arthur and Dutch were party to.

"Some bullshit I said I weren't gonna do no more," Arthur answered John's question, scowling. "I only did this because you _swore_ to me—"

"Don't pretend that you think a promise like that can really be _kept_ , Arthur," Dutch chided. "It isn't like we never ran jobs like this before. You know full well that everything goes perfectly until it doesn't."

The worst thing was that Dutch sounded so _sincere_ , so conciliatory and regretful, even as he argued that it was _Arthur's_ fault for taking him at his word.

"You know me, Arthur," Dutch cajoled, taking a step closer, and he kept doing that—using Arthur's name far too much, like he was trying to use Arthur's given name to remind him of the closeness, the _intimacy_ they had once had. "We don't kill needlessly, senselessly. We're not criminals—we're _outlaws_. You have to believe that if there had been _any_ way to avoid that man's death, I would have taken it."

John didn't believe that for even a second, but a glance at Arthur's face made it clear that he _did_ , at least a little, his expression more regretful than angry, now.

"… Don't ask me for somethin' like this again," was what Arthur finally said, his tone far more neutral now, firm but not really angry, not like he _should_ have been. "I ain't one'a your boys anymore. I can't be runnin' cons for you, it ain't _safe_."

Dutch was a very canny man, really. He clearly knew when Arthur could be pushed and when he needed to be _pulled_. "I only asked you because I _trust_ you, Arthur. That can be hard to come by these days."

"Yeah, well," Arthur muttered, crossing his arms, "maybe you should look at the folk around you and think about why that might be."

Dutch smiled slightly, without real humor. "Fair enough. There are very few men left in the world like you and I, Arthur. Men who have larger dreams than their own profit. Men who understand _loyalty_."

_Jesus_ , John remembered thinking, surely Arthur wasn't buying this shit?

"I owe you, I know that," Arthur admitted, in a frank tone that made John grit his teeth, "and I ain't about to forget it, but we," and John startled, because honestly, the other two men had been acting like they'd forgotten he was there, "keep on the good side'a the law these days, and I can't risk that changing."

Dutch glanced at John for the first time, his expression shrewd. John had never hidden his dislike of the man, and he didn't then, either, curling his lip up in a snarl. Dutch pursed his lips thoughtfully and looked back to Arthur, taking a step closer to clap a hand on his shoulder, the gesture as fond as it was possessive.

"Well, like I said, Arthur," Dutch drawled, his undertone ironic, "you're a man who understands loyalty."

*

"If after all'a this I die _drowning_ trying to sneak into an _outlaw camp_ ," John hissed when Arthur showed him the boat, "I am going to haunt you for the rest of your _life_."

"What, you don't think it's _romantic_?" Arthur replied as he untied the small vessel. "A starlit cruise?"

"It's only romantic if I don't have to do the paddling," John muttered back, though he couldn't stop the flush that rose to his cheeks at Arthur's teasing.

"Well, you're constantly moaning at me about my shoulder, I couldn't possibly row all that way without hurting it, could I? Meanwhile you," he gestured to John's arm, from which they had removed the splint that morning, "are all _hale_ and _hearty_."

And, well, it wasn't like Arthur was _wrong_ , although he was a little annoyed that Arthur only seemed to look out for his health when it suited his own purposes. "Just admit it, it ain't about your shoulder—you're just getting _old_." John sniped back.

Arthur just rolled his eyes and held out a hand to help John off of the jetty. When the boat rolled as he stepped onto it, he immediately grabbed at Arthur's upper arms in an iron grip, eyes wide, pulling closer to the other man's steady frame.

"You been in _gunfights_ ," Arthur said, amused, even as he gripped John's hips to steady him. "I once saw you thrown off a _cliff_ , and _this_ is what scares you?"

"My pappy used to dunk my head in a bucket when I was a kid, when I got ornery," John said with gritted teeth. He would never forget that feeling—his father's huge hands tangled up in his hair, holding his face under the water until John stopped thrashing. Hell, for all Arthur teased him about it, that was the whole reason John hated washing his hair, the feeling of dunking his head in the water making his gut clench.

Arthur went very still where John was still pressed us against him, hands steady on John's sides. "To make you wash up, like," he said, tone leading, inviting John to correct his conclusions.

"To make me _shut_ up, like," John replied, teeth still gritted, trying not to pant because it really was kind of pathetic, getting so worked up over a boat ride. "I'll be _fine_ , all right, just—just lemme siddown."

The boat rocked as John lowered himself onto the bench, hands still clenched in Arthur's shirt, trying to suppress the skittery panic under his skin. He knew the fear was irrational—even if he went over the side, or the boat turned over, Arthur would be there, and wouldn't let him drown—but childhood fears were always the hardest to shake.

"Maybe I should row," Arthur said, uncertain. He wasn't really all that great at being comforting, and John hated coddling anyway, but the discomfort and worry on his face were clear, and he hadn't yet taken his hands off John's ribs.

John finally let go of Arthur's shirt to punch him in his good shoulder, scowling. "I said I'll be _fine_. I ain't some whimpering _maiden_ , I just … need a minute."

Arthur leaned back after a moment, taking his hands away and sitting on the other bench so that they were facing each other. Arthur rested his elbows on his knees and watched with an unreadable expression as John slowly released his white-knuckled grip on the bench to tentatively grasp the oars.

"Your father was a piece of shit," Arthur said eventually, his tone conversational, as he lit a cigarette. It was funny, because to a different person, that would have been an insult, a _challenge_ , but for the two of them, it was more a _condolence_.

John laughed under his breath, taking a drag from the cigarette when Arthur offered it to him, to settle his nerves, before he started to row. "Yeah, well," he drawled, as they finally moved away from the jetty, "so was yours."

He could have meant Lyle Morgan, or he could have meant Dutch Van der Linde—both would be true.

*

Shady Belle was surrounded by a swampy marsh and a series tiny, overgrown islands lousy with snakes and alligators. They found a good spot to pull beach the boat on one of the larger islands out behind the old plantation, behind the overgrown graveyard, and set up to watch the camp's movements. Dutch and his retinue hadn't even left, yet—there was a fancy, obviously stolen, carriage pulled up out front. The boy, Lenny, was dressed as a coachman, tending to the horses hitched up to it, and the cheeky blonde woman, Karen, was leaning up against it with a cigarette in her mouth, wearing probably the fanciest dress they could find on short notice.

The rest of the camp seemed to be packing in for the night. There were a few lights flickering inside the decrepit house, and a main campfire out in front if it, and John could just barely make out what he thought was Javier Escuella sitting by it with a guitar, a girl with brown ringlet curls—Marian or something, he couldn't quite recall her name—sitting on a log across from him. He reckoned that everyone else must have been bedded down, in the house or the tents.

Williamson, Hosea and Dutch finally emerged from the house, dressed to the nines—though Dutch was the only one wearing a top-hat and white gloves, the pretentious bastard—and loaded themselves and Karen into the coach, heading up the dirt path to the gate.

"So that accounts for Williamson, Dutch, Hosea, and the kid" Arthur muttered under his breath, "and Escuella's by the fire. So where's Bell and Smith?"

John peered closer at the path leading up to the gate, and saw a flash of a white hat. "Looks like Bell is on watch out front. Smith—" he tried to look closer at the dark edges of the water, at the decrepit shacks that were behind the building, but he couldn't see anything in the dimness, "—him I don't see. Nor any of the other womenfolk, but they're probably in the house."

Arthur made a thoughtful noise. "You went hunting with Smith, you tell me—he gonna shoot us if he sees us?"

"Probably not," John admitted after a minute. "I mean, Dutch said no one was gonna shoot you, anyway, but I don't think he'd shoot me, either."

They both fell silent when there was the sudden flash of a match being lit behind one of the sheds, not fifty yards from them, and when John brought the binoculars up again he saw Missus Sadie Adler leaning against the rotting building, wide-brimmed hat hiding her eyes, lighting a cigarette, other hand tucked into her gunbelt.

"Missus Adler," John whispered to Arthur. "She's alone, looks like."

"Is _she_ gonna shoot us?" Arthur asked, and John hedged a bit more at that, because even in the one time he'd met her, Missus Adler had struck him as a stick of dynamite just in search of a match.

"She called the gang a bunch of degenerates," John said uncertainly, "but then again, she's still with 'em."

Arthur made a thoughtful noise, then motioned for John to duck down. "Like you say, Dutch said no one was gonna shoot _me_. Wait here."

" _Arthur_ —!" John hissed, but Arthur was already wading through the swamp to opposite shore, making no attempt to hide the noise.

Missus Adler looked up instantly, hand jerking to her pistol, peering out into the dark. "Who goes there?"

Arthur had taken the lantern from the boat when they beached it, hooked onto his belt—he lit it now, holding it up to illuminate his face, and Missus Adler actually _relaxed_ when she saw him, shoulders dropping loose, cocking her head curiously.

"Mister Morgan. Fancy meeting you here."

Arthur tipped his hat to her, politely, as he walked closer. "Missus Adler."

She peered behind him briefly, gaze shrewd. "Where's that boy of yours? Don't seem like him to let you come here on you lonesome."

Arthur seemed to bristle a little at that, the idea that John had to _let_ him do things, but Sadie had seen then together at the camp, and she was a shrewd woman. She had clearly sussed out what the balance of power was. "We weren't real sure of his welcome," Arthur said after a moment, "nor mine, truthfully."

"Pretty poor in general, I'd imagine, least with the fellas" she said, sounding disinterested, "but I ain't gonna shoot ya. You got business here?"

"Of a sort," Arthur said, gesturing for John to join them, and after a moment he did, Sadie's gaze somewhat amused when John entered the circle of lantern light.

"There now, see: I knew you wouldn't be on your own," she said, slightly smug. "So, Mister Morgan, Mister Marston—there something _I_ can do for you? _Please_ tell me you're here because you all got Colm O'Driscoll."

"'Fraid not," Arthur replied, "but O'Driscoll did get one'a yours, seems like. Boy named Kieran?"

Sadie's eyes narrowed, suspicious. "That boy ain't been seen 'round here since the night little Jack came back. You sayin' he ran back to the O'Driscolls?"

"What I'm saying is that we found his corpse in Bayou Nwa with his eyes gouged out, and kinda wondered what Dutch was doing about it," Arthur said, plainly, and Sadie's face went flat. She put her cigarette back to her lips, sucking aggressively.

"… dumb fucking kid," she muttered, looking away, "all he ever want to do was play around with horses, never even saw him use his gun. It was O'Driscolls? You're sure?"

"We brought two of 'em in alive," Arthur replied. "One of them was part of the same group that took me."

"Dumb fucking kid," she repeated, sadly, as she tossed her cigarette to the ground, grinding it under the toe of her boot. "That why you're here? To tell us 'bout Kieran?"

"You think you're gonna end up any different, you keep following Dutch?" Arthur challenged, abruptly, and Sadie's eyes flashed up at that, hot and dangerous, her expression hard.

"I can look after myself," she sneered.

"And Abigail? Jack? Susan and the girls? You looking after _them_ , too, or are you really trusting _Dutch_ to do it?" Arthur shot back, and Sadie worked her jaw, looking thunderous, looking as dangerous as any man they'd ever faced down.

"… what are you two really here for?" She asked after a long moment, as she rested her hand once again on her pistol without real intent, more a reminder that she, too, was dangerous. That they didn't scare her. "Why you asking about those folk? They ain't your _concern_. Your boy," she nodded at John, eyes hard, "made it pretty clear that you all wanted no part of _our_ way of doing things."

"We don't," John put in, "when _your_ way involves kids winding up dead in _swamps_ , or shot in the head in Rhodes, or God knows what else! Christ, don't you get that we want to _help_ you?"

" _Help_ us?" Sadie spat back, incredulous. "Right, you tell me then—how you gonna _help_ us, lawman? How are _you_ gonna keep them safer between the two'a you that all the men we got?"

"By getting them _outta this_ , for Christ's sake!" Arthur said, and there was something in his tone that was equally incredulous. "Dutch _can't_ protect you, we done _seen_ that now! Every last one'a you is gonna die while Dutch hies off after whatever big dream he's after this time!"

"Tahiti," Sadie muttered under her breath, sounding irritated. "Tell me this then, lawmen, you got—" she stopped a moment to laugh under her breath, shaking her head, perhaps realizing the irony of what she was about to say, "—you got a _plan_?" When Arthur hesitated, glancing over to John, she snorted. "Yeah, that's what I thought." Sadie pushed herself off the wall of the decrepit cabin, arms crossed over her chest. "You said that this ain't safe. But a whole buncha people running blind to nowhere ain't safe, either. So tell you what, boys—I'll talk to some of the women around here, and you come find me again when you got a place to go and a way to get there."

"And we find that for you," Arthur said slowly, "you and the others—you'll go?"

"I only speak for me, Mister Morgan, _but—_ let's just say that some of us here understand the reality of this situation more than others." There was an ironic twist to her mouth, but her gaze was unwavering, and Arthur nodded.

"Then I'll trust you, Missus Adler—if you'll trust me," he said, holding out a hand.

"Trust is a hard thing to come by 'round here," Sadie said, but she clasped Arthur's hand, firm as any man, and shook it, like a promise.

*

They saw the fireworks from the boat on the trip back—brightly colored cloudbursts above the glowing lights of Saint Denis, reflecting across the still water. It was eerily beautiful, like nothing John had seen before, and he'd almost forgotten about the vastness of the water beneath them when Arthur grasped John's wrist and pulled him over to sit on the same bench as Arthur, shoulder to shoulder, to watch.

Arthur didn't take his hand off John's wrist while they sat, the boat swaying only slightly, Arthur's thumb sweeping across the inside of John's wrist almost absently. Arthur had been right, before—when he wasn't worrying about the water under them or the destination in front of them, it _was_ kind of romantic.

"This is gonna work out," Arthur murmured after a moment, still watching the fireworks.

John, feeling weirdly sentimental, dropped his head onto Arthur's shoulder. In the middle of the Lannahechee, in the middle of the night, it wasn't like there was anyone there to see them. "How you know that, then?" John asked, mildly.

Arthur huffed out a laugh, turning so that his cheek pressed against the top of John's head. "I guess I have faith."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lovely reader has done an illustration of one of the scene from this chapter: [you can find it here](https://twitter.com/_KalesBug/status/1136984794275835904). The artist is @_KalesBug and the art is just lovely. <3


	15. Chapter Four, Part Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what I have been building towards. I think there are one or two things towards the end of this chapter that might shock you. Please be assured that they happen for a reason. If you want to know what the reason is, I am happy to discuss in the comments. And yes, this chapter is significantly longer, because I didn't want to split it. This is what I have been waiting to get to for the past few chapters, and I hope it lives up to expectations.
> 
> Incidentally, this closes out Chapter Four storylines.

There was only one real option for any of Dutch's folk they could get out, and that was to head west.

West was where the law was looking for Dutch and his boys, but they weren't looking for women and children, and Arthur and John had connections there. They knew the land and they knew the lawmen. Even with a troop of people behind them, it was likely they could avoid unfriendly attention—at least from the law—and make it back as far as New Austin, where it would be suicide for Dutch to follow.

But that wasn't a _plan_. Dutch's camp followers were not gunslingers, but they _were_ thieves, whores, and undesirables. The kind of group that decent folk might want run out of town on a rail. Arthur had made a (mostly) honest life for himself, but he'd done it by marrying an honest woman and becoming part of _her_ life. Eliza had already lived in Armadillo for _years_ when Arthur married her, and being Eliza's husband had been enough for the town to accept him. Years later, Arthur and Eliza taking John in, calling John Arthur's brother, had been enough for the town to accept _him_. But what would make any town accept a motley crew of penniless, outlaw-adjacent nobodies?

"Right now, everyone at the camp at least has an idea who's gonna protect 'em, and where their next meal is comin' from," John pointed out to Arthur, as they rode slowly back into town. "I mean, that's what Missus Adler was getting at, I reckon. Stayin' is better than beggin' in the streets, or whorin', or thievin', or whatever they were doing before. I mean, that's why they ended up with Dutch to start with, right?"

"I— maybe," Arthur said, but his tone was slightly dubious. "I mean … that ain't how it was for me. I weren't really looking for someone to feed me or protect me or any'a that."

John thought back about Arthur's story of how he had met Dutch, a charismatic man in the jail cell across from him, and asked, "What was it then? For you?"

Arthur sighed. "Hell, I don't know, John. I was young. Maybe I just liked that idea that someone in the world might actually care if I lived or died."

John's gut clenched, because _Jesus_ , did he know what that was like. "You think that's it, really? You think those folk believe Dutch _cares_ about them?"

"They'd be fools if they did," Arthur replied, without hesitation, and John actually startled at the fervor in his voice. Arthur must have surprised himself, too, because he immediately winced, as if struck by his own words. "No, that's not what I— of course Dutch _cared_ about them. He used to care about a _lot_ of things. Now it's just … I don't know. Money. _Ownership_."

 _Himself_ , John thought, though he didn't say it. It was clear that Arthur already knew, even if he wouldn't say it. What Dutch cared about now was _himself_.

"Never mind, it don't matter," Arthur said eventually. "In the mornin' I'll send a wire to a few people I knew back in Armadillo. Herbert Moon might still be there, and Drew MacFarlane had that big ol' ranch, maybe he'd have some work for some folk down on their luck."

It was the first time in a long time that John had heard Arthur talk about their life in Armadillo, the first time in a long time he'd even acknowledged they'd _had_ one.

John had only met Drew MacFarlane once, though he knew Eliza had nannied for some of his younger children before she married Arthur. He'd seemed to like Eliza well enough, but what he had thought of Arthur, John couldn't say. "We that's something, at least," John replied, trying to sound encouraging.

"Yeah," Arthur agreed, sounding much more certain than John, "we'll find something."

*

Three days later there was a telegram waiting for them at the saloon bar, the smeared handwriting of the telegraph operator predictably terrible.

> _Mister Morgan,_  
>  _Know of man looking for literate nanny._  
>  _Will find places for others willing to work._  
>  _Do not bring trouble to my family._  
>  _Drew MacFarlane_

"Do not bring trouble to my family," John repeated, as he read over Arthur's shoulder, feeling a guilty little twist in his stomach. "I mean, that's kind of exactly what we'd be doing."

" _No_ , we wouldn't," Arthur immediately insisted, "because there's no way that Dutch could follow us into New Austin, and I doubt the law is looking too hard for some thieves and whores that _may_ have run with him."

John thought back to the first time he had met Dutch, and something he'd said to Arthur— _I always keep eyes on my family_. Dutch not being able to follow them right away … that didn't necessarily mean that he couldn't find out where they were through other means. John didn't really owe anything to Drew MacFarlane himself, but he knew that the man had a whole passel of children, and surely they should worry about _their_ safety as much as that of the gang?

"You said it yourself, it's about _ownership_ now, right?" John said finally. "I'm only worried Dutch'll do something mad to get his _property_ back."

Arthur gave him a dark look from under the brim of his hat. "You said you'd help with this, John. Hell, you said _you'd_ make a plan and I'd follow it, and I _agreed_. But it's sounding like your _plan_ is to keep tryin' to tell me why we _can't_ until I give it up."

John scowled back, stung. "That ain't fair. I'm trying to be _realistic_."

"No, you're tryin' to be _fatalistic_!" Arthur shot back. "Why can't you just have a little bit of fuckin' _faith_?"

That was the second time Arthur had used that word in John's recent memory. The two of them, they weren't much for God or church, though Eliza had been, a bit. Faith to John had always meant trying to believe in what you knew weren't so, and he couldn't help but feel that was what Arthur was trying to ask of him.

"I ain't risking your life, or mine, or any of those folks', on _faith_." John said, quietly, firmly. "You can have all the faith you want, Arthur, and I hope it does you good, but that ain't enough for me. I'm not saying _give up_ ," he added quickly, at Arthur's dark look, "I'm saying _be sure_."

Arthur seemed to mull that over, working his jaw, for a long moment. "I ain't trying to run off half-cocked or nothing, John," he said finally, "but the longer we wait the more difficult things are going to be. Who knows what Dutch is planning to pull next."

"Then give it another week," John pressed. "Let's get some money together, at least, keep our heads down for a minute. Any luck, Dutch will get so caught up in whatever he's cooking up with Bronte, we can slip out on the quiet."

That turned out to be a very bad call.

*

There were two armed police guards outside of Angelo Bronte's manor when they rode past there. They hadn't even been gone ten days, on a few jobs for Chief Lambert, but apparently that was long enough for Dutch to put the entire city of Saint Denis on edge.

There were armed police at every intersection as they rode back towards the police station, no streetcars in the road, and a conspicuous lack of foot traffic on the usually crowded Saint Denis streets. It reminded John eerily of Blackwater, right after Dutch had hit there. Neither of them said it aloud, but John was certain they were both thinking the same thing: that Dutch had been busy.

Not that that they _knew_ it was Dutch, but … well, they knew it was Dutch.

Lambert jumped to his feet when they walked through the door, Lindsey Wofford squirming over Arthur's shoulder, and his expression was strangely … apologetic. "Morgan, I want you to know this is out of my hands," he said, before they had even said a word.

John and Arthur exchanged a wary glance, as Arthur sat Wofford, struggling, on one of the benches. "You're making me nervous, Chief," Arthur said mildly.

"These are federal men," Lambert stated, enigmatically, but he'd said enough that John knew what to expect when the door creaked open behind them. Andrew Milton and Edgar Ross, spiffed and starched in their pretentious uniforms, blocking the doorway.

"Hello, gentlemen," Milton said, his tone brittle, doffing his hat.

Arthur gritted his teeth, glaring, and took half a step in front of John, his stance aggressive. "I thought we'd said just about all was had to say to each other, Agents," he growled.

" _You and I_ have," Milton replied shortly, "which is why we're here to speak to your 'brother'."

They separated him and Arthur immediately. John could hear Arthur's raised voice when Ross took him back, but Arthur didn't follow. Ross dragged him to a dim, brick-walled room with a hand clenched around his upper arm. John couldn't recall having ever, during their brief acquaintance, seen Ross do much more than loom behind Milton, and a small part of him was actually kind of curious what sort of man Milton's dogsbody actually was.

The answer was: not that different from Milton himself.

"I'm going to say some names," Ross said, looming over John from the opposite side of a narrow wooden table, "and you are going to tell me what you know about them."

"Really?" John replied, incredulous. "That's how we're doing this? Shouldn't you be chaining me up in a basement somewhere?"

Ross gave him a look of utter disdain. "We are representatives of the United States government, Mister Marston. We're a bit more _civilized_ than that."

John thought about the two black eyes Arthur had when he returned from _questioning_ by the Pinkertons, right after Dutch hit Blackwater. "Yeah, 'course you are."

"Do not misunderstand me," Ross added, "we _will_ get the information we want from you, one way or another. But there's no reason it _has_ to be unpleasant, as long as you cooperate. So: Dutch Van der Linde."

John actually scoffed. "You probably know more about him than I do. He was Arthur's old boss, but he don't talk about him much. Think there's some bad blood there, if I'm honest."

Ross didn't react. "Hosea Matthews."

"'Nother one'a Arthur's old friends. Never met 'im."

"Bill Williamson."

"One'a Dutch's boys. Only know him from bounty posters."

"Javier Escuella."

"You know, these are really questions you should be asking _Arthur_ ," John said pointedly.

Ross paused in a calculated way. "What about the name, 'Jack Roberts'?"

John froze before he could control it, his mind filling with white noise. "That's— I've never heard that name. Who is he?"

Ross didn't smile, but there was some strange, smug twisting of his expression, his gaze deeply satisfied. "We have reason to believe that Jack Roberts is the name of Dutch Van der Linde's illegitimate son. Whelped by one of the whores from his camp."

"Why would I know about that—or care?" John snapped, sounding far too defensive, even to his own ears.

"You tell me," Ross replied, "because from what we've heard, you and your _brother_ picked up a boy of his description from Angelo Bronte's mansion not all that long ago. Perhaps you never got the child's name?"

"We were paid to find a missing child," John replied instantly. "If he was Dutch's, well, that's news to me."

Ross slammed both his hands down on the table, hard enough that it rattled against the floor. "You cannot _possibly_ believe that we are that _stupid_ , Mister Marston."

"You'd be surprised how stupid I think you are," John replied dryly, without a hint of humor.

Ross reached across the table and wrapped his hands in the collar of John's shirt, yanking him half across the table. John's hands weren't bound, but he didn't grab back, just pressed his palms flat against the table while Ross snarled in his face. "You are _not_ the _noble savage_ here, Mister Marston! This is the _United States of America_. Dutch Van der Linde and his ilk are not waging a _holy war_ against the oppression of their _freedom_ , they are trying to destroy the very fabric of _society_ to benefit _themselves_."

"You're giving the wrong speech to the wrong man," John said lowly, evenly. "I think Dutch Van der Linde is a snake and a murderer. I think he deserves to be hung by the neck until he is dead. Truthfully? This ain't about me somehow tryin' to protect _Dutch_ , this is about me not liking _you_."

With a disgusted noise, Ross slammed John's head down against the table.

John actually laughed, blood immediately running from his nose down his upper lip, dripping onto the table. "Oh, now I'm _scared_. Please don't hurt me, Mister Government Man, I'll tell you whatever you want to know!"

Ross grunted, stepping to the other side of the table so he could press John's face down against the wood. "You know, Andrew was right. There _is_ no point in trying to negotiate with your sort. I suppose our only choice it to go ahead and sign that warrant for Arthur Morgan's arrest on suspicion of conspiracy. Maybe once they hand down his death sentence, you'll both be a bit more _cooperative_."

"You ain't got a lick of _proof_ ," John spat out.

"You'd be surprised how little proof a federal agent needs to kill a man, Mister Marston," Ross hissed back.

"So _fucking do it_ , you coward," John grunted. "You and Milton keep popping up and telling us all the shit you're going to do to us, and you ain't never done it. You _need_ us. I don't know why, but you _do_."

Ross lifted John's head off the table to slam it back down again. " _Where. Is. Dutch. Van der Linde_?"

"Ol' Leviticus must be getting powerful angry, huh?" John replied, breathlessly, blood pooling under his cheek from his bloody nose and lip. "Ain't seen his streetcars runnin' when we rode in."

Ross sneered. "You think you're very clever, don't you, Mister Marston," 

"We went over this part already," John laughed hoarsely. "I just think _you_ are stupid."

Ross didn't rise to the bait. Instead, he changed his tack, letting go of John and moving to sit down on the other side of the table. His voice took on a cajoling, leading tone. "You could be making allies instead of enemies, here, Mister Marston. You give us what we want, and we could make life a lot easier for you and your friend. How would you like a commission for the US Marshalls, hm? Or perhaps a government post?"

"I look like a Fed to you?" John replied incredulously.

"Money, then. You're bounty hunters—money is all you're interested in."

John wiped his arm under his nose, smearing blood and shot across the blue sleeve of his shirt. "You don't get it, _Agent_. Arthur and I—we don't want money, or influence, or whatever you're about to offer me next, we just want to be left the _fuck_ alone."

"You tell us what we want to know," Ross immediately replied, "and I can guarantee you will be left alone."

John scoffed. "I'll pass."

Ross' clicked his tongue like a disapproving parent. "There is only one way this is going to end, Mister Marston, and that is with Dutch Van der Linde in our custody. This isn't the Old West anymore. Men like Van der Linde are a threat to the very _fabric_ of society, and we _will_ root them out."

"Yeah, all right," John sneered back, "but you aren't doing this for _society_ , you're doing it for Leviticus Cornwall's oil money. You're just more bounty hunters, except you somehow got the government's blessing to break the law while you do it."

"Exactly so," Ross agreed, easily. "We are privileged to use whatever means necessary to achieve our goals. Do you really think that you two alone can stand up against the full force of the US Government _and_ the influence of one of the richest men in the country?"

Even if Ross hadn't bashed his head against the table, this conversation would be giving John a headache. "Jesus Christ, we ain't done _nothing_ to you or your fucking _patron_. You done found Dutch once before, I know you did, you don't need _us_ for that. So what the hell is your _angle_?"

Ross looked at his for a moment, considering, and then finally admitted, "Cornwall wants Dutch _alive_. There's fully double the money on the table if he's able to able to see Dutch hang. We possibly _could_ find where he's camped, and even assault it, but it's practically a guarantee that he and everyone else would die."

And Jesus, of course that was it. John didn't know Cornwall, but he knew his type. Man like that wouldn't be content seeing his enemy taken out—he'd want to see him suffer, to witness his end for his own sick satisfaction. It explained why they needed Arthur, too—they needed an _in_ to Dutch's camp, and they had no access to Dutch's other boys. Arthur, though—he lived in the world. He walked down the street where they could find him, and he had _things_ , legal, honest things, that they assumed they could threaten to get him to cooperate.

Things like John.

Like every other goddamn thing to date, even this farce of an interrogation wasn't really about _him_.

"You never really expected to get anything out of me, did you?" John said darkly.

Ross' mouth slowly curled into a smirk, and he stood from his chair, picking his hat up off the table and angling it down over his eyes. "Well, it was an entertaining exercise either way," he replied lightly. "I think we're done here. Be a good little hostage and—"

They both startled when they heard the explosion.

"Stay here," Ross said, tersely, as if John had a choice, and then left him in that dim lit room. At a loss, John did just that for a few minutes, before he came to his sense and tried the door—it was locked. He tried the window next, pulling himself up to peer out of the narrow, barred aperture. It looked out onto an alley, where he could see nothing interesting, but he could hear some kind of commotion out on the street, the first explosion followed by a second, somewhat more distant, and the sound of screaming.

He was still peering out of the window, trying to figure out the direction of the noise, when the door splintered inwards, hit with one hard kick right by the lock. It was Arthur, of course, who strode in without a pause and grabbed John by the wrist to pull him out behind him.

"Arthur— Jesus, wait a second!" John exclaimed, planting his feet. "What about Milton and Ross—?"

"They've got bigger problems. C'mon," Arthur replied shortly, tugging on John's arm again.

"The hell is going on?" John demanded, even as he allowed Arthur to pull him out towards the front.

"Right this second, or in the week we been gone?" Arthur replied, harried. "Apparently Saint Denis' gone to hell. Bronte's vanished, probably dead, Dutch and his boys wrecked a fuckin' streetcar, and now apparently someone is blowin' up the garment district."

" _Someone_?" John repeated, and Arthur grimaced.

"It doesn't matter," Arthur dismissed, tone still short.

"Just wait a goddamn _second_ , Arthur, _Christ_. Where the hell are we going? What the _hell_ is going on?" John demanded, planting his feet once the got out of the station, and twisting his arm free of Arthur's grasp. " _Is_ it Dutch? Are we sure?"

"Of course it's _goddamn Dutch_ ," Arthur snapped back. "It's Dutch to a fuckin' _tee_ , make a buncha noise and sneak around while everyone's looking the other way. We— we need to get our heads down."

Another explosion erupted in the distance, making them both flinch, shooting dark black smoke up into the sky, and two policemen on horseback nearly ran them down as they galloped towards the noise. "Yeah," John agreed, breathless with adrenaline, "yeah, all right. Where?"

Arthur glanced around them for a moment, eyes narrow, then jerked his gaze up. "Streets are too dangerous. We need to get to the roofs."

Saint Denis was a dense city. You could get nearly anywhere from the rooftops. "Okay," John agreed, following Arthur's gaze to the roof of a nearby government building. "Let me grab my rifle first." He caught the sharp look Arthur shot him, and held it. "I might need to shoot someone," he said carefully, meaningfully, and after a moment Arthur nodded, though his expression was sour, mouth pursed.

"You do what you have to," he replied, pulling his own pistol from its holster, "but be quick about it."

*

From the roof, it was easier to see the extent of the damage. There were three columns of smoke rising form the northeast, and the bells of the fire brigade carriages could be heard across the entire city. It was an absolute cacophony of sound—horses snorting and squealing, carriage wheels traveling far too fast across cobblestones, shrieks and yells of terror and alarm. It rather reminded John of their last day in Valentine, crouched on the roof of the livery stable while the town around them collapsed, all the same right down to the scoped rifle in his hand.

Right down to the people he could see through the scope.

The road east of the Saint Denis police lockup was the home of the Lemoyne National Bank. It hadn't been the first thing that John thought of, but it should have, especially when Arthur talked about Dutch's preferred strategy of _distraction_. The view was obstructed, but he could just barely see through the farthest picture window into the interior of the bank, to see patrons down on the floor, hands clasped over their heads, while an armed man milled between them. John couldn't see his face, but the build and the beard made him think it was Bill Williamson.

"Arthur," John hissed in a whisper, as if they might somehow hear him from that distance, "I think Dutch's boys are in the bank."

Arthur shouldered up next to him at the edge of the roof, taking John's rifle to peer through the scope. He cursed after a moment, lowly, lowering the gun. "That's Williamson, all right. Don't look like the law knows they're there, yet."

"We're smack-dab in the middle of Saint Denis," John pointed out. "How are they possibly planning to get out?"

Arthur shook his head. "Jesus, I don't know, but listen—" he gestured towards the dwindling smoke from the northeast, "the fire brigade bells have stopped. Reckon they're already figuring it was a decoy." It had already been maybe ten, fifteen minutes since the first explosion. They town had gone from a over-loud din to an eerie quiet, the only sound that of hoof-beats and wagon wheels.

John watched through his scope for another moment—if the men in the bank were aware that their time was running short, there was no outward indication of it.

"We can't do anything here, Arthur," John pointed out, which was painfully true. At best, John and Arthur were spectators, here. They couldn't protect Dutch from the law, and John knew full well that Arthur wasn't about to help them be captured.

And then they heard Milton's voice, distant but strident, yelling from the street, _Dutch, get out here_ , and Arthur was moving before John could grab for him.

John cursed and followed, Arthur jumping between the rooftops with dangerous speed, until they had a clear view of the road, of the law set up right across from the bank's enormous picture windows, hunkered down in force, with goddamn Andrew Milton standing square at the front, holding a man at gunpoint.

"It's Hosea," Arthur hissed, before John had even a second to take it all in, "he's got Hosea."

John gut clenched, but he put a firm hand on Arthur's shoulder, holding him in place. "Don't do anything stupid, Arthur."

Arthur shook the hand off without a thought. "I won't. Just stay here."

"Arthur—" John reached, out, grabbed Arthur's arm only to be shaken off again. "If I get a line of sight on Dutch, Arthur—" he spat, more a threat than anything else. Stay here if you want to stop me.

Arthur didn't even turn around, didn't pause. "You do what you have to, John," he said, shortly, before he was sliding down a ladder to the street.

John cursed, putting his rifle scope back up to his eye. He couldn't see into the bank from this angle, but he could see Milton, red-faced and yelling, a gun against Hosea's shoulder blade. Hosea looked … frail, oddly cowed … diminished. He stumbled when Milton shoved him into the street, nearly falling to his hands before he caught himself. John couldn't hear what was said, but it must have been something, because Hosea and Milton both jerked their eyes to Arthur, storming down the center of the street, sidearm drawn. Goddamn it, John had _just_ told him not to do anything _stupid_.

Hosea was still looking at Arthur, expression unreadable through John's scope, when Milton shot him in the chest.

"Jesus _fuck_ ," John breathed, watching, frozen, as Hosea crumpled like a ragdoll. Hosea's hands had been empty, he hadn't even had a gunbelt on.

He saw Arthur break into a run when Hosea fell, the only motion in what was, for a moment, a frozen tableau. Milton stood with a square stance, gun smoking. The bank was silent. Hosea lay motionless, a pool of red spreading underneath him far too quickly. It was only Arthur, skidding to his knees beside Hosea, that broke the moment, and it was just as he was bending over Hosea that gunfire broke out.

Neither the law nor Dutch's boys seemed to be particularly aiming for Arthur, but that didn't stop John's heart from leaping into his throat as Arthur drug Hosea across to the relative safety of the storefronts, a wide streak of red drawing out behind them. Milton had already ducked into cover, the coward, letting the Saint Denis law do the shooting. Once he saw Arthur drag Hosea around the side of the building, out of the line of fire, John turned his scope to the front of the bank, the windows now all blown out.

The explosion from the bank building was large enough that the street shook, that John ducked back behind the barrier of the roof for a moment, breathless.

When he finally popped his head back up there was a sniper on the roof of the bank. A glance through is scope showed the it was Escuella with a scoped Springfield, popping his head up only long enough to fire, to keep the lawmen's heads down while others climbed up behind him. The whole group of them crawled up the ladder after him—Williamson, Bell, Smith, Summers, and finally Dutch himself, huddling back from the edge of the roof, protected from the gunmen on the ground.

But John had a clean line of sight.

He hesitated. He shouldn't have. He had Dutch square in his sights, the man crouched on the roof opposite, gun in hand, bandana pulled down around his neck, hat gone. For a moment he looked pitiable, his expression desperate, baffled, a man desperately out of his depth. For a moment, John almost felt pity.

Then he pulled the trigger.

And the boy behind Dutch's left shoulder jerked backwards and fell.

"Shit, shit, _shit_ ," John cursed, working the bolt on his rifle, but the rest of the men had already pulled further back by the time his new round was chambered, ducking around the back of the building, out of sight. The only thing left on the roof was Lenny's motionless body, blood pooling, sprawled where he had fallen.

"God _damn_ it," John muttered again, thinking only about Dutch managing to slip away, as he shouldered his rifle. He slid down same ladder Arthur had used, having half a mind to follow them, but when he rounded the corner he nearly stumbled over Arthur, sitting against the side of the building with his legs sprawled out in front of him, Hosea's upper body draped across them.

Hosea's shirt, Arthur's trousers, and the pavement underneath them were all absolutely coated in blood.

"Shit," John hissed, in a very different tone, dropping down beside Arthur. Arthur's eyes were open but unseeing, as if in a trance, and John finally slapped him across the face when shaking him by the shoulder didn't make a difference.

Arthur hadn't cried when Eliza and Isaac had died. He didn't cry now. He just turned his bleary gaze to John, as if just having noticed him, and said, flatly, "He's dead."

John grasped Arthur's shoulders firmly, pressing him back against the wall. "Are _you_ hit?"

Arthur blinked once, as if he hadn't understood the question, before he reached one hand up to curl around John's wrist. "… no. I ain't hit. Not a scratch on me."

"I think Dutch got away," John told him, and a some strange, small part of John thought that might make Arthur _happy_ , that it might actually be some kind of _comfort_ to him. Instead, Arthur just slowly moved his hand to close Hosea's eyes, his hands, already soaked in blood, leaving smears of red on Hosea's eyelids when he touched.

After a moment he sighed. "None of us ever got away."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to point out that I never billed this as a everyone lives/nothing hurts fic. But I hope it hurts in a good way.


	16. Chapter Five, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is going to be where things start to verge a lot farther from canon. I've tried to stick to the main plot so far, but the more I think about coming chapters, the more AU it's going to become. I'm not planning to suddenly ignore canon, but I think I've differentiated this John and Arthur to the extent that things simply have to be different.
> 
> The fandom is slowing, or maybe this fic is getting to be a bit of a slog for some, and that's okay. Interests change. But I _am_ going to finish this, and I hope those of you still reading trust me to take you there.

The law took Hosea's lifeless body right out of Arthur's arms.

He had to let them—Hosea was a criminal involved in a criminal conspiracy, shot by an officer of the law, and that meant an inquiry. Not that there was much doubt as to how he died, or who caused it.

Milton and Ross had vanished in the firefight, probably chasing after Dutch. Dutch, who had left near a dozen bodies behind him, sprawled in the street like a battlefield.

Though John supposed they should be used to that by now. Seemed to happen everywhere Dutch was, these days.

"Arthur," John said after the coroner took Hosea, "we should … you need to get cleaned up." Arthur was standing in the middle of Saint Denis absolutely coated in blood, drying in flakes on his trousers and smeared up his arms almost to the elbows. He looked like he'd skinned a deer, like he'd just finished butchering something.

Hosea's face had been absolutely white when they took him, no lingering color to it, like every drop of his blood had wound up on Arthur.

"Arthur," John pressed again, when the other man didn't move, didn't acknowledge him at all—just stood staring, sightless, at the blood pooling in the cobblestones. "We can't—Arthur, we need to get out of the street."

"He was right there," Arthur said, instead of replying. "He was not ten feet away from me, and I couldn't stop it."

John swallowed hard, hands hovering by Arthur's elbow without touching. Arthur was blood-soaked. John had not a drop on him. But John was the only one of them who had killed a man that day. "It was Milton that shot him, there weren't anything you coulda done. You think an arrogant sonumbitch like Milton was going to stand down for us? Couple'a bounty hunters? We're lucky he didn't shoot you, too."

"Lucky," Arthur repeated, toneless. "Hosea didn't even have a gun."

"Arthur," John said, a third time, curling a hand around Arthur's wrist. The dried blood flaked off under his fingers. "We need to not be here if Milton comes back. _We need to go_."

Arthur looked down at John's hand on his wrist, expression tired, eyes dim. "Where we gonna go, John?"

They tried the saloon, and the Hotel Grand, but every shopfront in town had barred their doors when the shooting started, the streets empty except for corpses and the occasional lawman, meandering aimlessly, seemingly just as lost as John and Arthur.

They wound up back at the police lockup, ironically the only place with unlocked doors. Benjamin Lambert met them in the atrium, eyes going wide at the blood on Arthur.

"You boys get caught up in that mess?" He asked, inanely, as he waved them into the back. "Maybe you should have stayed where those agents put you."

"Blood ain't mine," Arthur said shortly.

Something about the tone of his voice, the amount of blood, told Lambert what he needed to know. "… I see," he said slowly, looking Arthur over again in more detail. "Think one of my boys said we got a body headed to the coroner that might account for it. You want to tell me about that?"

John expected Arthur deflect, was prepared to back up whatever lie Arthur told, but Arthur looked at Lambert with a haggard expression and said, flatly, "I ran with Dutch Van der Linde when I was a kid."

"Arthur—" John immediately interjected, alarmed, but Arthur waved him off.

"It ain't been a real secret in a long while, John," he said tiredly. "Dutch and Hosea Matthews, the man goin' to your coroner, damn near raised me for almost ten years." He swiped a heavy hand across his face, eyes distant. "I went straight near fifteen years ago, but … someone does that for you, you don't really forget it."

"… I see," Lambert said again, eyes narrowing in an expression that was more curiosity than suspicion. "That's … an unenviable position to be in, being on the opposite side of the law from the folk who raised you."

"They made their choices and I made mine," Arthur said lowly, looking down at his bloody hands.

"Right," Lambert said, curiously. "Well … look, son, we got a washroom in the back where you can clean up. I had your horses put up in our stable when the shooting started, weren't sure when you were coming back. I'll, uh … try to give you a heads up if the agents show back up."

"Thank you," John said, absently, as he followed Arthur past the cells.

*

Hosea's blood swirled down the drain in long pink ribbons.

Arthur stood with his hands braced on the sink for a long time, watching the water run until every speck of red was gone from the basin. John usually had a very clear idea what was going on in Arthur's head—the man wasn't dumb, but he was _uncomplicated_ , both in his drives and desires—but right now his own head was absolutely filled with white noise and he had no idea what was happening in Arthur's.

He kept seeing Lenny Summers jerk backwards on the roof of the bank, his eyes wide and white, mouth open. Seeing him sprawled where he fell. John had killed people for far less money than Summers was probably worth, had sent men to hang for as little as fifty bucks and thought nothing of it, but somehow …

The fact that it was one of Dutch's boys, someone he had spoken amicable words with, made it _feel_ different. Made his gut clench at the thought of Arthur knowing.

He still had the Evelyn Miller novel Lenny had given him in his saddlebag.

He was so in his own head that it took him a second to follow when Arthur shoved away from the sink, almost violently, and turned to stride back out through the station with a purpose. John had to jog to catch up to him, trying to catch at the still red-flecked sleeve of his shirt. "Hey, whoa, where are we goin'?"

"Shady Belle," Arthur said, not breaking stride.

John's mouth fell open. "What? _Now_? The roads are going to be—"

"Come or don't," Arthur said shortly, shaking off his hand, "that's where I'm going."

"Arthur—" John tried to press, and Arthur spun around with an aggravated noise.

" _No_! All you've wanted to do is _wait_ and now more people are _dead_. If I had pressed a little harder _weeks_ ago, maybe Hosea would be alive right now!"

John opened his mouth to reply—saying what, he wasn't sure, but that had never stopped him running his mouth before—when a lilting voice interjected, "Matthews is dead?"

John and Arthur both slowly turned to see their old friend, Colm O'Driscoll's spokesman, leaning up against the bars of the cell next to them, forearm braced up above his head, peering out at them with a hint of smirk.

"That's a damn shame," he said lightly, "Colm always said he was the smart one."

Arthur had him in an instant, right hand fisted in his striped prison shirt, yanking him forward so that his cheek pressed against the bars. "You stick your nose in our business you're gonna be going to the gallows with it broken," he growled.

"Why ain't they hung you yet?" John demanded.

"'Cause I been talking up a storm," he answered, bracing his hands against the bars to push back against Arthur's grip. "They hung Niall a week ago, but me? They've had _questions_ for me. Colm's me blood cousin, y'see. Told them _all_ about when we took you, too," he added to Arthur. "Some Pinkerton feller had me tell him the story twice. Think he was getting something out of it!"

Arthur growled, pushing the man back a moment so he could slam his face against the bars. Fresh blood spurted onto Arthur's face from the newly split lip. "I'd be careful, O'Driscoll. You are finding me on a _very_ bad day."

"You're finding me days away from a gallows that you put me on!" the man spat back. "Oh boo hoo, poor ol' Hosea bit it—even our boys knew the old bastard was already dyin'."

Arthur slammed him against the bars again, now gripping his shirt with both hands, "I'm gonna tear that disrespectful tongue right outta your _goddamn_ _mouth_ , you son of a bitch—"

The man laughed in Arthur's face, mouth and nose bloody. "Like we near did to wee little Kieran, right? Guess you Van der Lindes aren't so much above us after all, eh? What would your pappy Hosea say, if he weren't worm food—?"

It took John, Lambert, and two uniformed officers to drag Arthur off the man, the O'Driscoll's face an absolute wreck by the time they did, Arthur's hands newly bloody, blood droplets smearing on the floor under their boots when they wrestled him to the ground, John not even hearing the panicked words coming out of his own mouth.

"Throw him in with the drunks to cool off," Lambert snapped shortly, when the two officers had finally hauled Arthur back up between them, panting, face flecked with blood.

"Do you really need to—" John started to wheedle as the men drug Arthur off, but Lambert cut him off with a sharp motion.

"Look, Mister Morgan, this isn't the Old West," Lambert said firmly. "In Saint Denis you can't go around assaulting people, not even prisoners. _That said—_ " he added, when John opened his mouth to argue, "I am not going to arrest your brother. I am … _sympathetic_ to your current situation. He's going to spend a few hours in with the drunks and then I'm going to have an officer escort the both of you out of town."

"Are you saying we ain't welcome in Saint Denis anymore?" John asked slowly.

Lambert gave him that narrow-eyed, curious look he had previously aimed at Arthur. "You haven't been charged with any crimes I know of, Mister Morgan, and I haven't seen any posters with your face on them. But trouble seems to follow the both of you, so you'll pardon me if I'd like to allow things to calm down for a while."

John couldn't really blame him, there. "Right. Fair enough. Think we were fixing to leave, anyhow."

He was just about to follow Lambert back up to the front of the station when the O'Driscoll spoke up again, from where he was crumpled in the corner of his cell. "Hey. Hey, John Marston," he slurred, one eye already swelling shut, "you wanna—you wanna know where you can find Colm O'Driscoll?"

John, who'd been about to ignore the loudmouth again, paused, turning slightly.

"Why would I believe a goddamn word you had to say?" He asked lowly.

"Colm, me own blood, left me here to _rot_ ," he spat wetly. "Far as I'm concerned, he shouldn't get any better'n I do."

"What about loyalty?" John challenged, his tone ironic.

"Ha, that and a nickel will get you a cup of coffee," the O'Driscoll replied. "You—" he moaned as he shifted, grimacing, "—you don't have to listen to me. But I don't got much reason left to lie."

"… all right," John said after a moment, stepping closer. "Tell me."

*

John took himself down to the docks to buy some provisions after an hour or two, as it seemed likely they would be camping out for a while, and it was something to do other than sit and wait for Arthur, sitting locked in a jail cell like a common criminal. There he found Abigail Roberts, crouched behind a crate.

It was surreal, the moment they recognized each other, both of them freezing, unsure of the balance of power here. The only explanation for her presence in Saint Denis, as far as John was concerned, was that she had been involved, somehow, with the bank job. That would make her not a camp hanger-on, but an actual outlaw. And for her part, for all she had been cordial with John at the camp, he was still mostly a strange lawman to her, an unknown in a place where the unknown could get you killed. She had a child to think about, one who, if she was gone, might only have Dutch Van der Linde to rely on.

That being the case, he wasn't entirely surprised when she pulled a gun on him.

John didn't so much as twitch towards his own guns. He'd been lighting a cigarette when they spotted each other, and he very slowly shook out the match, telegraphing every movement while Abigail rigidly aimed the pistol right at the center of his chest.

"… you won't be needing that, Miss," he said finally, when it was clear she wasn't going to speak first, holding his hands out to the sides, palms open. "I ain't gonna do nothin'."

"I remember the first time a man ever said that to me," Abigail replied, her aim not wavering. "I didn't believe it then, neither."

"I ain't never shot a woman in my life, Miss Roberts. I ain't lookin' to start now."

"Good, because you'd have to," Abigail said darkly. "I ain't the type to go quiet."

John's mouth quirked a bit at the corner. "I rather got that impression of you."

She hesitated another moment, then lowered the gun, tucking it into her skirt. "Do you know what happened to the others?"

John hesitated as well, licking his lips. "Most of 'em got away. Matthews, and that boy, Lenny, they, uh … they didn't"

"They're in jail?"

"They're dead."

He could certainly have been more delicate about the revelation, but in his experience bad news was better given fast. He could see the information strike her like a physical blow, her head jerking back and eyes going wide. "That's—god _damn_ it," Abigail hissed under her breath, voice wet, hands clenching into fists. "I _knew_ , I goddamn _knew_ this whole thing was going to go to hell."

John glanced over his shoulder towards the train station, but no one seemed to be paying them any mind. "Are they looking for you? Can you get out of town?"

"They're looking for me," she said darkly. "Why else would I be hiding here like a roach? Look," she reached into her skirt and pulled out a few bills, "would you go buy me a hat and a shawl? Anything I can put over my clothes. If I do that and do something different with my hair, I might be able to slip out." She narrowed her eyes when he hesitated, looking over to the train station just as John had, moments before. "… unless you'd rather forget you saw me. I don't actually _need_ your help, lawman."

It would have been so, so easy to take her up on her offer, to turn his back and go about his day. He had enough problems, and Abigail Roberts was a hard woman, she would probably be _fine_. As she'd said herself, she didn't need his help.

"With respect, Miss Roberts," John said, tipping his hat, "I think that might not be true."

Abigail scowled at that. "I ain't some fairy tale maiden in need of saving, Mister Marston."

"And I ain't no Prince Charming, as I'm sure you noticed," John replied dryly, turning away.

"Where are you going?" Abigail hissed suspiciously.

John looked back over his shoulder at her, quirking an eyebrow. "To buy you a hat and a shawl. Ain't that what you said you wanted?"

"What I want is to never have been part of this _mess_." She snapped suddenly. "I knew I shoulda said no, but I'm on thin ice with Dutch as it is, and there was the chance for _so_ much money—" She scowled, shaking her head. "But what do you care. We're all just more thieves to you lawmen types, I reckon."

It was a clear challenge, but that wasn't an argument John was particularly interested in having, right that minute. "And I guess we're just more lawmen to you outlaw types," he replied dryly, and then continued back to the little general store.

"Do you have a horse?" John asked when he got back, handing her a striped cotton shawl and wide-brimmed hat. None of her clothes matched each other, but that wasn't really the point.

"I look like I got a horse?" Abigail replied shortly, unpicking her hair from its chignon and shaking it out before pulling the hat down over her eyes. "Dunno what happened to the wagon horses. Reckon if they didn't get killed in the crossfire, the police have 'em."

"Then Arthur and I will take you back. You not gonna make it to Shady Belle on foot."

Abigail paused in setting the shawl around her shoulders. "That sounds like a powerfully bad idea," she said slowly, which was not a refusal.

"Yeah, well," John sighed, taking a last drag on his cigarette and throwing it into the water, "bad ideas are sorta gettin' to be our specialty."

*

Arthur was leaned up against the atrium wall when John got back to the station, arms crossed over his chest and hat blocking his eyes, closed off. Even so, he seemed subdued, almost chastened, nodding absently to whatever Lambert was telling him, mouth pressed into a thin line. His hands were wrapped in white gauze, spotting red at the knuckles, and he was wearing a clean shirt and trousers, his alternate set from his saddlebags. John thought, inanely, that they'd need to go shopping at some point—the other set was likely no longer salvageable.

"—speaking of family, here's your brother to collect you," Lambert said, more loudly, when he noticed John in the entryway. He nodded a greeting, patted Arthur on the arm in a way that immediately made John think of Dutch, and disappeared back into the station proper.

"What did he mean, about family?" John asked as he walked over to Arthur, crossing his arms reflexively, matching Arthur's body language.

Arthur looked back at his as if he hadn't heard him for a moment, something strange going on behind his eyes, before sighing and breaking away from John's gaze.

"He gave me a— a note. A 'writ' or something. Saying the State of Lemoyne will recognize me as Hosea's next of kin, so I can bury 'im."

"Oh," John replied, lowly. "That's …" He didn't know what that was. Of course Arthur would want to bury Hosea. But he also couldn't help but think that one of the last things Hosea had said to Arthur was to not look back.

"The last time I buried someone …" he didn't finish. He didn't have to.

Eliza and Isaac had a proper Christian burial. A sermon read by the local preacher, who had barely known them. Church women dabbing at their eyes with handkerchiefs and rubbing at John and Arthur's arms, calling them both 'poor dears' and promising to do whatever they could to help.

As if anything would help.

They'd both hated it. It felt selfish to think that, but all of it, the pity, the attention, had clearly made Arthur's skin crawl. John honestly believed that, if he hadn't been there, there would have been a fistfight at the funeral.

In some ways, Arthur hadn't changed much, since then.

"I oughta just let Dutch's folk do it," Arthur said finally. "He belonged to them more'n he belonged to me. John, when I die—"

John immediately cut him off. "When you die I'm gonna be right there with you, so you best give your last wishes to someone else," he said crossly. "Now come on, we got places to be."

"We do?" Arthur asked, somewhere between curious and suspicious, and then blew out a sudden breath when they pushed through the door and he saw Abigail, standing between their two horses, casually looking away from the uniformed lawman—their promised escort out of town—mounted up right behind her.

"A fine time to be in Saint Denis, ain't it, cousin?" She called up to them, voice light, posture easy. "Reckon its about time you took me home."

"Family," Arthur said under breath, tone ironic, and then rolled his shoulders, like he was settling into his own skin, before striding down the stairs.

"Reckon you knew what you were in for when you came to spend time with a couple reprobates like us," he called back, and anyone who didn't know Arthur would likely have missed the brittle, dark undertone.

 


	17. Chapter Five, Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovelies! I live!
> 
> I'm not going to make excuses for how long this chapter took--just know that I started a new job, moved to a new city, and generally uprooted my whole life, so those things took precedence. But I always said I would finish this fic, and I meant it! I just hope I manage to finish it with the drama and skill that I started it.
> 
> Anyway, here's the new chapter, enjoy!

They got out of Saint Denis without any trouble, being, as they were, escorted by a uniformed lawman. Abigail rode behind Arthur, her tiny little hands on his waist, the entire way to Shady Belle. There was something surreal about it—all this talk of _family_ made John think about Eliza, about Eliza posted up behind Arthur on the few occasions they'd ridden into town without the wagon.

Or maybe he was doing exactly what he had accused Arthur of: turning Abigail and Jack into Eliza and Isaac in his head. It wasn't as if they were really similar, anyway, because for all Eliza had been a sturdy, frontier woman, self-sufficient and competent, she had also been soft in a way Abigail didn't seem to be. Eliza hadn't had an easy life, but she hadn't had a cruel one, either. Abigail … well, her past wasn't for him to pry at, but John reckoned her youth was probably about as unpleasant as his and Arthur's.

They didn't talk once they left Saint Denis—Abigail had kept up a cheerful discourse until they parted ways with their escort, an unsettlingly skilled actress, but they all immediately dropped into heavy silence once they crossed the bridge. Arthur was still obviously disturbed by Hosea's death, and Abigail looked no better, her eyes distant as she seemed to linger in her own head.

It was only when they caught sight of the decrepit front gates of the once-grand plantation house that she spoke up. "We should stop here. I'll go ahead and see if any of the menfolk made it back—if they did, they're liable to shoot you on sight."

Arthur got down to help Abigail off the horse—though she clearly didn't need the assistance. "We both know," he said gravely, as he set her on her feet, hands on her narrow waist, "that none'a them made it back."

"Yeah, well," Abigail sighed, sweeping her loose hair out of her face, "that might end up being for the best, if I'm honest."

Arthur cocked his head thoughtfully, as if surprised by her admission. "It just might, at that," he agreed flatly, and then stepped back to watch her walk down the long wagon path to Shady Belle. John got down off his thoroughbred as she put her back to them, edging shoulder-to-shoulder with Arthur.

"She didn't say anything about what we talked to Missus Adler about," he said lowly.

"Yes, she did," Arthur replied flatly, lighting a cigarette, "or what did you think that 'might end up being for the best' comment was about?"

"Huh," John said, taking that in. "Then … se's for it. She wants to go."

"They all want to go, John—away from this, at least." Arthur said, passing him the cigarette. "Even when I ran with Dutch, the dream was always to steal and con enough money that we wouldn't have to steal and con no more. Ain't nobody in the word that really _wants_ to live a life on the run. You just fall into it, and then you can't get out."

"You did." John pointed out, as he passed the cigarette back.

"Sure I did," Arthur agreed in a drawl, gesturing around him with the cigarette in his hand, mouth quirking up at the corner in something that was not at all a smile. "I'm obviously miles away from it right now."

 _But you didn't 'fall into it' this time,_ John didn't say, _you jumped in with both feet_.

It was two cigarettes later when Missus Adler came to wave them on down the road to the camp, riding a gold dapple Turkoman with a rifle across her back. She nodded shortly to them when they trotted up, her face grim. "Well," she drawled, "fancy meeting you boys here."

Arthur tipped his hat to her, ever the gentleman when it suited him. "We're here to bring news, Missus Adler. And to be of service, however we can be."

"News," Sadie repeated, her tone ironic. "Abigail says you don't think the men are coming back."

Arthur didn't say anything to that, because there was nothing to say.

"We have to plan that they're not, I reckon," Sadie continued after a beat. "Grimshaw's against leaving right away—she wants to wait for Dutch—but Pearson's already packing up the chuck wagon, and the girls are tearing down all the tents. You reckon the law is on the way, or do we have time?"

"I spent a good four hours with the chief of the Saint Denis police," Arthur said, "and I can tell you with confidence that they have no idea you're out here. That said," he gestured behind her, to the sprawling camp, "it won't take 'em long to find you once they actually start looking."

"Right," Sadie agreed tiredly. "So we need to be gone by then."

"And you will be," Arthur assured her easily. "You told me before to come back and see you when I had somewhere for you to go. It ain't exactly the ideal time, but I do. I have somewhere."

Sadie gave him a shrewd look, eyes narrow. "Back west?"

"New Austin."

"We'd never make it through West Elizabeth."

"Without Dutch, with us as an escort—you will."

"You're all talk," she snapped abruptly. "It's all well and good for you to say you can get us through, but you ain't the ones what'll hang if you're wrong."

"Ain't we?" John put in, leaning forward over the neck of his horse. "The Pinkerton Detective Agency has been hot to put a noose on Arthur for months. You think we ain't risking anything? You don't want our help, tell us and we'll get gone. Be easier for us in the long run anyway."

"John …" Arthur chided, expression pinched.

"It would be," John said, defensively.

"That's not— look." Arthur turned his attention back to Sadie. "I ain't here to drag you kickin' and screamin' behind us. I also ain't gonna leave anyone here who's willing to take the chance, so lemme talk to 'em."

Sadie looked churlish for a moment—stressed and scared, and, like a true frontierswoman, only showing it in anger. She jerked her head behind her towards the courtyard. "Well, come on, then."

*

"We've gone farther in worse ways," Abigail said bullishly. "And they ain't really after _our_ necks, is they?"

"They are _now_ ," Sadie replied. "I ain't saying we stay _here_ , I'm saying that things need to cool off before we try to head out across the goddamn _country_. Besides, a trip that long needs plannin', _supplies_. We been barely scraping by for too long—we'd starve on the trail, 'specially with so few of us as can hunt. You know how much _food_ a camp this size _eats_?"

"Considering I ran with a gang, _this_ gang, for _ten years_ , yeah, I have something of an idea," Arthur said shortly, "and I ain't saying it'll be _easy_ , but what lately _has been_?"

"And you'd think those ten years would mean a little _more_ to you," Miss Grimshaw put in, arms crossed under her ample chest. "You really think we'll just leave our men behind?"

"Susan," Arthur replied, his tone both familiar and tired, "you loved Dutch. _I_ loved Dutch. But look around us, right now. Dutch ain't loving anything but _money_."

"You haven't been here," Miss Grimshaw immediately shot back, "you haven't _seen_ —"

"I been here _enough_. I seen _enough_."

"He _saved your life_ , young man!" She snapped. "When you was young, and again when those O'Driscolls took you—"

" _No_ ," Arthur replied firmly, his eyes dark. " _Hosea_ saved me when I was young, and _John_ saved me when the O'Driscolls took me. And Dutch took credit for _both_ , just like he probably took credit for getting Abigail's son back, even tough it was John and I what went and got him from Bronte."

Miss Grimshaw worked her jaw, looking sour. "You're a bitter man, Arthur Morgan," she accused, darkly, and John couldn't help but think of how much she was projecting—Arthur had got out. She hadn't. She had spent her youth and beauty on Dutch, and gotten nothing for it.

"Maybe I am," Arthur said, tilting his head. "And maybe not being here, I'm able to see what this gang has become with clear eyes. Which is why we ain't offering to take the gang away from Lemoyne. We're offering to take whoever wants to go away from _the gang_. If that's ain't something you can go along with, then I reckon we're going to have a problem."

"Now that is just about _enough_!" Susan Grimshaw snapped. " _No one_ is leaving this gang! This gang has done _everything_ for you!"

"Sure," Abigail replied, "just like it did everything for Jenny, Mac, Davey, Sean, Kieran _,_ " she ticked them off on her fingers, one by one. She had to switch hands, not having enough fingers on one, "Lenny _, Hosea_ ," her voice choked a little on the last one, and John could see the rest of the camp flinch as well, Arthur included. "Can't do any more for the dead, so I reckon it did do just about _everything_ for 'em!"

"Where would you be without this gang, Miss Roberts?" She challenged.

"A whorehouse, maybe. Or dead. But that would still be better than watching _my son_ grow up to be a killer!"

"He ain't just _your_ son!" Miss Grimshaw shot back, and the entire camp suddenly fell deathly, ominously silent. Even John held his breath a moment. They hadn't spent that long in the camp, but it hadn't taken long to notice that Jack's obvious parentage was treated as a total mystery. That Jack was the camp's own Thing We Don't Talk About.

Abigail stared back at her for a long moment, face frozen with something hotter than rage, but her voice was icy when she spoke. "Mister Morgan," she said, still glaring at Grimshaw, her voice dangerously even, "how soon can we leave?"

"Guess that depends," Arthur said slowly, his eyeing Susan, eyeing Sadie, "on how many people are coming. And whether anyone tries to stop us."

*

Susan gave in, in the end.

John had misgivings about it—having someone along who didn't truly want to be there felt like a security risk, felt like asking for trouble, but he could tell right away that Arthur wasn't going to cut her out. Not when every other member of the camp was coming with them.

Arthur stalked off to smoke by the water once the decision was reached, hat pulled low over his eyes, while the camp returned to packing away all their worldly possessions—what little there was. A few wagons' worth for a couple dozen people. John and Arthur lived out of their saddlebags themselves, of course, but they had _chosen_ that. They'd had the option for something else, and turned it down. These folk … John didn't think most of them had truly _chosen_ to live this way, not the way he and Arthur had.

Arthur wanted to save them, whether they wanted saved or not. John, on the other hand, understood the importance of choice.

Arthur glanced at him briefly when John joined him on the pier, and passed him the cigarette he'd been smoking, still wet from his lips. John puffed on it slowly, trying to read the closed off expression on Arthur's face.

"You must be real pleased," John said slowly. "This is exactly how you wanted this to go, isn't it?"

Arthur's grimaced, shoving a fresh cigarette between his lips. "Reckon so."

"You got an idea how we're gonna get all these folk to New Austin?"

"Yeah, I got a few," Arthur replied shortly, lighting a match against the bottom of his boot.

" _Arthur,_ " John chided, once the silence got heavy, "you plan on _sharing_ any of those ideas with me?"

Arthur was quiet for a long moment, puffing on his cigarette, gaze distant.

"You know, John … I probably woulda ate a bullet years ago if it weren't for you."

John nearly dropped his cigarette in shock. " _Jesus_ , Arthur, what the _fuck_?"

"I'm trying to tell you something," Arthur said, still looking out at the water, rather than at John. "I'm thinking … I'm thinkin' when we get to New Austin with these folk … maybe we stay there. Maybe even go back to Armadillo."

"You … you wanna go back to the house?" John said in slight disbelief. It had been six _years_ since they'd even set eyes on Eliza's house.

"I been thinkin', the life we're trying to give these folk … maybe I want that kinda life, too." He sighed, rubbing absently at the short stubble on his cheek. "If I'm honest, I'm getting' a little old for all this runnin' around. When I was younger, I always assumed I'd die bloody before I got a chance to get old, and I was fine with that. Even with 'Liza, I knew … I knew the way I was, it weren't going to end pretty for me. But right now, I'm thinkin' … I wanna get old. I wanna see _you_ get old. 'Stead'a dying in the street like Hosea."

Arthur's hands were shaking slightly when he went to take another drag on his cigarette, the cherry end trembling.

"I know I got no right to ask you, to _expect_ you, to want—especially with how I been lately, I been acting a fool—"

"Just—shut up a second," John cut him off, mind spinning. "You— you have _never_ —in all the years I been knowing you, Arthur, even when you had a _wife_ and a _kid_ , you have _never_ stayed in one place more than a _week_. Now you're saying—" John shook his head. "Is … is this about Abigail and Jack? You wantin' to keep eyes on them?"

Arthur let out a long breath, and finally turned to look at John, something painful, almost guilty in his eyes. "Is it so impossible that this is about you and me?"

The thing was, Arthur always gave in to John. He would give John anything he asked for, sacrifice himself in a second to keep John safe, but he would never take anything _from_ John, from anyone, for himself. Getting Arthur to accept anything he thought he didn't deserve was always a struggle, and Arthur had never thought he deserved much. The idea that Arthur was really suggesting this because _he_ wanted it was honestly hard to swallow. "We—we coulda done that any time. Hell, two weeks ago, before Saint Denis blew up, I all but _begged_ you to leave!"

"And I said I couldn't turn my back on these folk, and I ain't. But once we get them safe—"

" _Jesus,_ " John hissed, scrubbing a hand roughly over his face. "I really don't know what to make of you lately, Arthur. First you decide you wanna be some kinda _outlaw Moses_ and now you're talking about being, what, a _homesteader_ or sumthin'?"

"You know," Arthur said lowly, "when I asked Mary to marry me, she didn't believe I meant it, neither."

John froze.

"She told me that oughta take that ring and give it to Dutch Van der Linde, because he was clearly who I really wanted to spend my life with. Told me she weren't going to sit at home like a war bride, waiting to hear that I'd been killed runnin' cons with my boys."

"You saying you and I are like you and Mary?" John asked, quietly.

"I'm _saying_ , I _know_ I'm a bad bet. But that ain't never stopped you before."

" _Arthur_ ," John pressed, still stuck on his previous words, "you said … when you asked Mary to _marry_ you."

Arthur was silent a long moment, smoking aggressively, before he replied, "You heard what I said. I ain't gonna get down on one knee or nothin'." His tone was surly, scowling down at the water in front of them. "You— I—"

" _Jesus_ ," John hissed again, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Arthur, you— is this you trying to … to _bribe_ me into staying with you or sumthin? Because that's the dumbest—I ain't going anywhere, not without you. If this is about you _actually_ wanted to retire, then fine, we'll do that. But I ain't askin' you to."

Arthur was still scowling at the water, but his expression seemed more chagrined than irritated. "I'm trying—I'm trying to be different, John. I always said there was no future in it, but … well, maybe that don't have to be true."

It was a terrible idea, but most of John's ideas were terrible, so that didn't stop him from cupping a hand around the side of Arthur's neck and kissing him.

It was still daylight, and they were right out in the open on the end of the pier, but Arthur didn't stop him, didn't even try. If anything he gripped back at John almost painfully hard, kissing back open-mouthed.

Behind them, someone cleared their throat.

Arthur didn't even let go, just pulled back a few inches to glare over John's shoulder. "What?" He snapped, even as John buried his face in his shoulder, cheeks flaming with humiliation.

"Charles Smith just came back to camp," Sadie Adler said. There was a certain mildness to her voice that acknowledged the awkwardness of the situation. " _If_ you two can tear yourselves away."

She gave John a knowing look when he walked past her, his cheeks still red, following Arthur's strident pace. "It takes all kinds in this world, Marston," she said, meaningfully, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "Plenty of folk think a woman like me is just as strange."

"I would really, _really_ appreciate not having this little _talk_." John muttered, pulling the brim of his hat down over his eyes.

"Then maybe you should keep things a little more private, in future," she replied, not unkindly. "Don't know if everyone else here would be as bland about it."

John rubbed at the back of his neck, chastened. "Noted."

*

Smith was probably the only one of the gang's remaining gunslingers that would not be inclined to shoot them on sight. They were lucky in that respect, at least, but it would have been a lie to say he was _trusting_ when he saw them. None of the gang were really _trusting_ them, they were just _desperate_.

"—but Dutch was dangling a lot of lines," Charles was saying to Swanson as John and Arthur entered the house, Sadie behind them. The clergyman was wrapping a bullet wound in Charles' thigh.

"Seems like he tripped over one," Arthur said, tucking his thumbs into his belt, a picture of nonchalance.

There was a long, heavy silence at they eyes each other, ominously still, before Smith nodded in greeting. "… Mister Morgan, Mister Marston," He said calmly, but both John and Arthur saw the way that his eyes darted to his gunbelt, lying on a crate in the corner.

"Mister Smith," Arthur replied, in the same deceptively cordial tone.

"And I'm Missus Adler," Sadie said from behind Arthur, her tone dry. "Now that we've all established that we know each other's names, _and_ ," said added, meaningfully, "that none'a us are gonna shoot each other, maybe we can get to the point."

"Which point is that?" Arthur said, with no change to his tone.

"Right," Sadie sighed. "Charles, where are the others?"

Charles looked around at the other faces around them—Reverend Swanson, still bandaging Charles' thigh without meeting his eyes. Susan Grimshaw, in the corner of the room, scowling, arms crossed under her ample chest. Pearson, lolling on the ruined sofa with his elbows one his knees, head hanging. Abigail at the table with Jack in her lap, looking away, expression unhappy but mouth set in a determined line. And of course there was Arthur and John, both armed to the teeth, standing shoulder to shoulder, Arthur's arms crossed over his chest, John's right hand resting lightly on the grip of his revolver.

"What, exactly," he said slowly, carefully, "is going on here?"

"That's what we just asked you," Arthur replied with a deceptively mild tone.

Charles turned his gaze to Missus Adler. "Sadie?"

"We're leaving, Charles," she said, sounding tired. "We're heading to—"

"He don't need to know that. Not 'til we're sure of 'im." Arthur cut her off.

Sadie shot him a glare at that, setting her jaw, but she didn't argue the point. "Where are the others, Charles? Are they following you?"

"You're starting to make me nervous, Sadie."

"We're leaving," Abigail finally snapped, Jack clutched against her chest. "We can't _do_ this anymore, Charles. We want to have real lives. Hell, I have a _child._ So we're leaving, and we ain't coming back."

Charles looked around the room again, at Abigail's determined glare and Pearson's listless apathy, Grimshaw's aggressive scowl and Swanson's apologetic frown.

"What about Dutch? And the money?"

"You can't spend it if you're dead," Arthur said, the exact same thing he'd said to Dutch, all them months ago. "Mister Smith, I understand that you may feel some obligation to Dutch, to maintain his _family_ , but if his _family_ wants to go, what right does he—or you—have to stop them?"

Charles was silent again for a long time. He was a stoic, unreadable man, and it was hard to tell from looking exactly what might be going on in his head, but after while he nodded, seemingly to himself, and looked up, not to Arthur, but to Missus Adler.

"I owe a lot to Dutch. But those are _my_ debts, and I'm not going to try to use you all to pay them." He then turned to Arthur. "Dutch and the others were trying to get on a boat. The plan was to lay low for a few weeks at least, before even trying to return. I don't think you need to worry about them for a while. Now," he stood, favoring his wounded leg, "if you all are leaving, then I need to be on my way, too."

"You could come with us," Abigail said softly, almost hopefully, but Charles was shaking his head even before she finished.

"No," he said shortly, "I couldn't."

Sadie sent Charles off with a week's worth of supplies—far more than they could really spare, but neither John nor Arthur argued it—and as many bullets as he could fit in the saddlebags of his stolen horse. It was the only decision that made sense—Charles would have put the whole group at risk by coming along, his face the most recognizable by far. Even still, looking at the faces of the camp as they watched him ride off, John couldn't quite tamp down the sick twist of guilt in his belly.

"He'll be fine," Arthur muttered, perhaps as much to himself as John. "Man like that can run it alone, no problem."

"He was the one that brought you back when Colm took you, you know," John said, because he wasn't sure how much of that Arthur actually remembered. "Found you out by Twin Stack Pass and rode you back to Clemens Point on the back of his horse."

Arthur squinted up the path at Charles' back, nearly out of sight. "Huh. That was him?" He rubbed at the stubble on his chin, expression thoughtful. "Think I might have kicked him in the face."

John couldn't help the laugh that escaped him, and it was worth the odd gazes from the camp to see Arthur's mouth twitch up into a playful smirk.

 


	18. Chapter Five, Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an ... odd chapter. I say that not as an excuse, but only because it seems it got away from me in some way. There are some complicated things going on that I don't fully flesh out here, because its the kind of thing neither John nor Arthur would be able to talk about. I'm happy to elaborate on the comments if desired--I don't want to do it here because I don't want to seem like I'm underestimating my reader.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading.

There was only one more loose end to tie up, before they could get the hell out of Lemoyne.

The Saint Denis coroner was only too happy to release Hosea's body to them. "Even one cent spent burying a degenerate like that is too much. You wanna take the colored one, too? He'll go in a pauper's grave, otherwise."

They left the city with two nailed-shut coffins in the back of their wagon, Arthur's face white and his eyes haunted.

They'd been given all the property that both dead men had been carrying. Summers had an old, yellowed letter that they didn't read, out of respect, and a photograph of a pretty young woman with 'Jenny' written on the back, the corner stained brown with blood. Hosea had—

Arthur had only glanced at it for a moment before his face turned white, and he shoved the entire envelope into John's hands. There was a money clip, a handkerchief, a few notes and scraps of paper, and …

And a photo. Hosea, Dutch, and Arthur, recognizable, but younger than John had ever known him. Fresh, smooth-faced, but somehow harder and more wild, as well. He looked like a criminal, a degenerate, the type that a man wouldn't let his daughter step out with it. Despite that, or maybe because of it, he was immediately, _viscerally_ attractive, in a way that made John's gut clench, that reminded him of being sixteen and thinking about, for the first time in his life, what it would be like to have Arthur over top of him.

Arthur had been in his mid-twenties the first time John could remember being attracted to him. The Arthur in that photo must have been around nineteen. He was young, pretty, soft in the face but hard in the eyes. He could see the bones of the Arthur he knew, the construction of him, but that didn't change the fact that, for John, the man in that photo was ultimately a stranger.

This was the Arthur that Dutch and Hosea had known, but John hadn't. He slipped the photo into his satchel when Arthur wasn't paying attention, feeling slightly guilty but, well … how many photos did he have of Arthur, after all, at _any_ age? And what good would it do to bury it with Hosea?

"Bessie, his wife … she's buried in Missouri," Arthur told him, as they were leaving town. "In a fair world, that's where we'd be taking 'im. To lie with his wife."

"It ain't a fair world," John replied, needlessly. They both knew that already.

Arthur was silent for a long moment, the only sound the grind of the wagon wheels. "Do you ever think about … about where Eliza is? Or where we might be? I know it don't really matter, but—"

"You wanna be buried next to Eliza and Isaac?"

Arthur shrugged. "You'll be the one burying me, John."

" _Fuck you_ , no I won't!" John snapped, instantly. He wasn't having this argument again.

Arthur actually laughed under his breath at that. "John … even if we retire, I'm near a decade older'n you. I mean … if you decide to throw me in a ditch instead'a burying me, I guess it won't much matter to me, but I'm gonna die before you do."

"Shut up. _Stop_." John insisted, hands fisted in his own trousers, painfully hard. "I don't want to think about this. Why the _hell_ are you making me—"

"All right, all right, I'm sorry," Arthur placated. "I guess … Hosea was a father to me. More than Dutch, a lot of the time. You don't think about folk like that dying. When you're young, they seem immortal."

"Where you gonna bury Dutch," John said after a pause, eye narrow, "when he dies?"

"I ain't." Arthur said, instantly. "One'a his boys can see to it. Or he can rot where he falls."

"You sure about that?"

Arthur's expression twisted a moment, something complicated flashing across his face, before he sighed, looking away as he admitted, "No, I guess I ain't."

*

The whole camp wanted to be there, of course, but that was asking for trouble—it was only Susan, Pearson, Abigail, Uncle and Sadie who met them outside the city.

Despite the fact that he was a worthless piece of shit, Uncle had known Hosea for years. Same for the others. They were the old timers, the ones who'd paid in the longest. Sadie … well, she was different. She hadn't been there long, but she was important. Powerful, reliable. She wouldn't mourn Hosea the way the rest of them would, but she was a leader. She had to be there.

It was painful. Of course it was.

Arthur and Pearson took the coffins down from the wagon. John had offered to help, but Susan Grimshaw's glare had stayed him—and that was fair enough. Arthur had the right to carry Hosea's body. John didn't. John was nothing to Hosea.

"We made the markers already," Sadie had whispered, as Arthur and Pearson were digging. "They won't last like a stone headstone, but … well, we did what we could."

Hosea Matthews. Lenny Summers. The last piece of these human beings that anyone would ever know.

John could still picture Lenny jerking backwards and falling. John hadn't been aiming for him, but he'd hit him. He'd killed him. And none of these people, standing around as John helped to bury him, had the slightest idea.

"Do you want to say something?" Sadie asked Arthur, once they'd lowered the coffins into the dirt, before they went to work covering them back up.

"What's there to say?" Arthur replied lowly, leaning against his shovel.

Susan cleared her throat, made the sign of the cross. "Hosea Matthews was a good man in a bad world. He loved with his whole heart, and he wanted nothing but the best for those around him. Lenny Summers was only a child, who never had the chance for the kind of life he deserved. He was a victim of circumstance, and, given the chance, he could have been a great man. Instead, he died too young. May the good Lord," her voice cracked at that, and she pressed a hand over her eyes, "may he see fit to grant them a place in heaven."

" _Jesus_ ," Arthur hissed, his voice wet. He ducked his head down, hat brim hiding his eyes, and shoveled the first lot of dirt onto the top of Lenny's coffin. After a moment, John moved to help.

"Hosea always done right by me, by all'a us. Even when we didn't deserve it," Uncle mused, starring down into the grave as they filled it in. "I just wish I'd said so when he was alive."

"Wish I'd said a lotta things while he was alive," Arthur grunted, eyes still hidden.

"He'd be happy, though," Uncle said after a moment, "to think about the women getting out. Would probably be helping you."

"That what you think?" Grimshaw said coldly. "Dutch is Hosea's oldest, dearest friend. I can't imagine he would just run out on him, the way we're doing."

"There's a lot of things I couldn't imagine six months ago, that seem awful plausible now," Pearson muttered, taking a swig from the flask in his hand.

"If I may speak outta turn," Sadie put in, "I think I learned enough about Hosea to know that, what he would really want, is for the folk he cared about not to be startin' a quarrel standing over his grave."

Arthur grunted, letting another shovel-full of dirt fall over the wooden box. "Wise woman."

Grimshaw scowled for a moment, but then seemed to collect herself. She came over beside Arthur and John, and bent over to pick up a handful of the loose dirt in one bare hand.

"Ashes to ashes," she said calmly, as she dropped the dirt onto Hosea's coffin, "and dust to dust. There but for the grace of God go we all."

John wasn't really sure how much 'God' had to do with any of this.

*

The camp was all packed by the time they made it back to Shady Belle, ready to leave at first light. The others went right to bed, but Arthur lingered by the fire, smoking pensively. Mary-Beth was the last retire for the evening, sitting across the fire from Arthur and eyeing him unsubtly or a long while before finally speaking

"Was it pretty?" She asked, looking wistful. "Where … where you buried 'em?"

For a moment it seemed like Arthur wasn't going to answer, staring into the fire as if he hadn't heard, but he finally sighed and looked up at her.

"I don't know much about pretty, Miss. There was a big tree there, old, must'a been growing there for decades. We buried 'em right in its shade. Susan said a few words."

"Maybe when everything calms down, we can go see them." She replied sadly. "Pay our respects properly. Kieran too, I … I was told that you buried him. Did you … is there a marker?"

Arthur winced, looking away. "I'm sorry."

Mary-Beth sniffled at that, looking down into her lap. She thought that he was apologizing for not marking Kieran's grave. When the truth was, there was no grave to mark. "I'm sure you did what you could," she said weakly, sounding on the verge of tears. "He was … a sweet boy. He deserved better."

"They all deserved better," Arthur responded, softly, lighting another cigarette. "This world rarely gives folk what they deserve."

"At least you're trying," Mary-Beth said, sincerely. "I don't know you at all, Mister Morgan, but what you're doing for us, here … it means a lot. That someone thinks we deserve a chance. You're a good man."

"Well," Arthur said, pushing himself to his feet, "I'm trying to be, at least."

"That's all anyone can ask," Mary-Beth called after him, painfully sincere.

"She likes you," John said, mildly, when Arthur stalked over to where he was slouching on the porch.

"She's some kinda romantic, and she don't know me," Arthur replied shortly. "Why you eavesdropping, anyway, when you should be sleeping? We're gonna have a long couple weeks ahead of us."

"Not much appeal to an empty bed," John said, dropping his voice low. "You gonna come with me?"

"… You're walkin' a fine line, kid," Arthur grumbled, but there was quirk to his lips that said he wasn't too off-put by John's come-on.

"Ain't failed me yet," John replied. He reached out and snagged one of Arthur's suspenders, yanking the older man up against him in the shadow of one of the pillars.

"This isn't really the time, John," Arthur murmured, even as he pressed his hands to the pillar on either side of John's shoulders, boxing him in.

"What other time is there?" John replied, brashly, running his hand down Arthur's suspender and tucking his fingers into his waistband. "Like you said, we're about to have a long couple'a weeks ahead of us."

"The house is full'a people," Arthur pointed out, but he was clearly considering it. He wouldn't bother pointing out the problems if the answer was going to be no.

"I can be quiet," John countered, lowering his voice to a whisper.

"No, you can't," Arthur laughed.

Arthur wasn't wrong—it was a terrible time. They were surrounded by folk who were only barely their allies, and they had just buried the closest person to a decent father Arthur had even known. Even still, their conversation on the pier was still fresh in John's mind, and, frankly, burying Hosea was a stark reminder that _they were still alive_.

"Don't tell me no," John whispered, cocking his head coyly, looking up at Arthur through half-closed eyes as he ran his thumb over the brass button on Arthur's trousers. It was shamelessly manipulative, because John knew full well that telling him 'no' was one of the things that Arthur was worst at.

"You're gonna be the death'a me," Arthur muttered under his breath, heaving a much put-upon sigh. Then he pushed him around the corner of the building, and kissed him up against the crumbling clapboard.

John had still half expected to be brushed off, turned down, and he felt almost dazed when Arthur shoved him up against the wall by his shoulders, almost jarringly hard.

A lot of the time he felt like he was cajoling Arthur into sex. He'd thought that was what was happening here, too—that he was going to poke at Arthur until he 'gave in', until he grudgingly admitted that he wanted this as much as John did.

Instead, Arthur had John pinned up against the wall with his bulk, as if _John_ was the one who might run off.

 _I'm trying to be different_ Arthur had said. But John hadn't thought that he was talking about something like _this_.

" _Christ_ ," John groaned, sounding incredulous even to his own ears, when Arthur moved to suck a bruise into the skin below John's right ear. He clutched at Arthur's biceps, dropping his head back against the wall with a thud.

"You said you could be quiet, John," Arthur murmured, right into his ear. John shuddered.

"I am being quiet," John argued back breathlessly, "you ain't done anything yet to make me noisy."

Arthur pulled back a bit and peered at him, his eyes, about the only part of his face John could see in the dimness, narrowing slightly. "Hmm."

John pawed at him desperately when he started to pull away—"No, wait, c'mon,"—but Arthur only moved far enough to drag John further into the dark, tucking them in a corner beside a crumbling brick chimney. Pushed John up into the corner and kissed him again, wedging a thigh in between John's legs.

 _What's gotten into you?_ John didn't ask. He just fisted a hand in Arthur's hair, another in the back of his shirt, and gave back as good as he got, biting at Arthur's mouth like a feral thing, rutting against Arthur's thigh like a teenager. He'd started this, but it seemed, surprisingly, like Arthur was going to _finish_ it.

"If we get caught," Arthur murmured in John's ear, "I want you to remember that this was your idea."

Then he dropped to his knees.

 _"Fuck_ ," John groaned, dropping his head back against the wall.

"Quiet, John," Arthur whispered back, hands on John's fly.

"Fuck," John repeated, much softer, and shoved the corner of his collar between his teeth, biting down hard enough that they creaked. Arthur had his flies unlaced in a moment, pulling his trousers down only enough to get him out of them, licking up to the head and swallowing him down in an instant.

John had to shove the heel of his hand over his mouth the stop the pathetic noise he made.

John didn't know anything about Arthur's history, not with men. He knew there was something there, had to have been, but there had always been Mary, and then Eliza, and John knew Arthur well enough to know he would never have done anything while he was with either of them. So it would have had to be earlier—when Arthur was young. When he was still with the gang.

No one was so good, so nonchalant, about sucking cock as Arthur had been, if that was the first time they'd done it.

John certainly hadn't been.

But then, John's first time had probably been under very different circumstances than Arthur's. At least, he could hope so.

Arthur had John pinned by hips against the wall, fingers bruisingly tight, as he drank him down, John fingers buried in his hair, flexing involuntarily against Arthur's scalp. Arthur was right—John _was_ noisy, always had trouble keeping his mouth shut. He found himself holding his breath to keep the sounds in, until black spots danced in his eyes, until the only thing he was aware of was the feeling of Arthur's wet mouth on his prick, Arthur's hands on his bony hips, _Arthur—_

He gasped breathless when he came, clawing welts into the back of Arthur's neck until Arthur reached up and pulled John's hands away, pinning them against the wall beside John's shoulders when he stood back up and kissed him.

"C'mon, lemme go," John whined, twisting against the grip. "I wanna—"

"Later," Arthur replied, bafflingly, pressing John up against the wall, chest to chest, to kiss him again.

It wasn't until Arthur finally let go of John's hands, allowing him to pull the older man against him by the hips, that John realized Arthur wasn't even hard.

John pulled back slightly, incredulous. "What's—is something _wrong_?"

"Leave it," Arthur replied shortly, leaning in like he was about to kiss John again.

"Leave it—are, are you fucking _humoring_ me?"

" _Fuck off,_ " Arthur replied instantly, shoving away from the wall, and Jesus, how had this gone escalated so quickly? John grabbed Arthur by the sleeve before he could storm off, pulling him back.

"Wait, _don't—_ I just don't _understand_. I thought you wanted—"

"What I really want is not to talk about this," Arthur grumbled, but he didn't pull away again when John wrapped both arms around his shoulders and pulled him close, just dropped his face down against John's neck. _Jesus_ , John thought guiltily. He'd made a pass at Arthur, cajoled him into sex like he always did, and what he probably should have done in the first place was just given him a fucking _hug_.

He wanted to be sweet to him, give him something like _comfort_ , but the truth was, he wasn't sure he really knew how to do that much better than Arthur did.

"What do you want, Arthur? Just tell me," he said after a long moment, tucking his fingers into the hair at Arthur's nape, the way he'd once seen Eliza do.

"Christ, John … if it was anything you could give me, I'd tell you," Arthur muttered, mouth almost brushing against his collarbone.

"Okay," John said, softly, settling his shoulders back against the wall. If this was all he could do for Arthur right now then, well, that's what he would do. "You know I'd do anything for you, Arthur."

"Yeah?" Arthur replied, pulling back slightly so he could look John in the eye. "How about you promise not to die for me? That if it comes to it, you get yourself out?"

John blinked back at him for a minute. "I ain't gonna do that. Guess you'll just have to work real hard at keeping both of us outta the line of fire."

Arthur huffed out something that wasn't quite a laugh. "Yeah. Guess I will."

*

Molly O'Shea caught them going back into the house—or, well not 'caught', because they weren't doing anything inappropriate at that point, except perhaps walking a bit to close together, the backs of their hands brushing.

Molly O'Shea was a bit of a mystery. She hadn't voted yeah or nay when the camp had decided to leave, just sat in the corner of the room with her arms crossed, looking out the window with a bored expression. When Arthur had been recovering in the camp she had spent nearly all of her time in Dutch's tent, fixing her cosmetics, looking haughty, or standing by the water, shawl around her shoulders, looking wistful, like she was trying to see something that was just beyond the horizon.

She was closer to the haughty mood now, leaned back against one of the columns, fanning herself with a folding fan in one hand, smoking a cigarette with the other.

"You boys are out late," he commented, in a lilting Irish accent that, unfortunately, mostly made John think of the O'Driscolls.

"As are you, Miss," Arthur pointed out, tipping his hat. "Not for much longer, though, on our part. If you'll excuse us."

"If I'll _excuse_ you," Molly repeated, drawing out the words, tone ironic. "As if I mattered one jot around here."

"You should head in to bed as well, Miss," John suggested, uncertain how to respond to that. "We'll need to be heading out early."

"I don't sleep much anymore," she replied, looking away. "Can't seem to quiet my mind. Don't you gents worry about me," she added after a moment, blowing smoke out over her shoulder. "No one else seems to."

"I'm sure that's not true," Arthur said awkwardly.

"And I'm sure I don't want your pity, Mister Morgan," she clapped back instantly, before stalking off into the night.

"That's what Dutch does to people, you know," Arthur said, when he and John bedded down, fully clothed, on the threadbare couch. "It's like clay in a furnace. It either turns hard, or it shatters."

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #hugsnotthugs #Arthurneedsmorehugs


	19. Chapter Five, Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As you all know, I haven't really been naming these chapters. If I were, this one would be called 'the sin of pride'. Enjoy!
> 
> PS as always, I will probably be going back and adjusting grammar and typos.

_Then_

John had once run away from Eliza's house, from Arthur. Just once, very, very early on.

John had done a lot of stupid things in his life, and many of them had been during his first year under Eliza's roof. You see, you would think that being offered sanctuary, care, would be a relief, would inspire _gratitude_ , but you would be _stunningly_ wrong. Because living on the run, being alone, required an greatly inflated sense of _pride_. Pride was all that sustained you, in a life like that. When you're sleeping in a barn stinking of hay and cows, one hand on a gun; when you're eating slop out of a pig trough with your bare hands, kneeling in the pig shit; when you're sucking cock out behind a saloon for two bucks in the hopes of having enough money to buy a coat before winter, but end up spending it on whiskey again because nothing else gets the taste out of your mouth—

Well. The only thing that gets you through things like that is the thought you're better than what everyone else has. That your suffering and struggle is noble and strong. That the world is your enemy, and you're the hero of the story.

Heroes don't need to be rescued.

Three weeks into his stay was when he tried it. Arthur had just left from his third visit back since he'd brought John there, stayed two nights working around the house—repairing the groaning spigot in the backyard, sanding down the door to the bedroom so it wouldn't stick, building up the woodpile on the porch so it would last until his next visit.

He didn't ask John to help, and John didn't offer.

Right before he left, he hugged Eliza, put a big hand on the top of Isaac's dark little head, and then, after he'd mounted but before he rode off, he turned his gaze to John, sulking churlishly on the porch, and said, "You be good now, son."

John remembered thinking, who did this man think he was, to tell John how to _be_?

He took fifteen dollars from the box Eliza kept under the counter, a warm coat that was far too big for him, big enough to double as a blanket, as many cans of tinned meat and beans as would fit in his satchel, and a five-shot revolver he found while pawing through the cupboards for food.

He snuck out in the dead of night and headed north.

John had not chosen to lay low in New Austin. New Austin had simply been where he had been driven. He knew very little about it, had no special knowledge of the best direction to run or the best places to hide. He chose north because he knew that the river was south, and that was the only reason.

He was forced to turn east when he got to the cliffs.

It was two weeks before Arthur caught up.

It was night when Arthur came to his camp. John hadn't even heard him approach, didn't wake up until Arthur kicked at his feet, startling him awake. It was very much like the first time Arthur had found him, actually, except this time, Arthur didn't even pull his gun. This time, once Arthur had seen he was awake, he stalked over to the other side of John's dwindling fire, sat himself down on the ground, and lit a cigarette.

"Well," he sighed with his exhale, smoke ringing his face, firelight dancing his shadowed eyes, "what am I going to do about you, boy?"

John vividly remembered what Arthur had _threatened_ to do if John stole from him.

"You here to take my balls, then?" John replied, trying to sound unintimidated. From the dark chuckle Arthur replied with, he had failed.

"Well, here's the thing," Arthur said, as he pulled a silver flask from his hip pocket. "I am a man of my word. But sometimes a threat is just a threat." He took a long draw from the flask, not even keeping his eyes on John while he did it.

"… what _are_ you going to do to me, then?" John asked, even as he twitched his hand closer to the pistol he had stashed in his satchel.

Arthur hummed thoughtfully. He screwed the camp back onto the flask and tossed across the fire to John who, reflexively, caught it with both hands. "Guess right now I'm gonna have a drink wit'cha," he said, leaning back on his hands in a way that would make it very difficult to draw his guns, "while we puzzle that out between the two'a us."

*

_1899_

Arthur and John set up their own camp, just within sight of the main one, the first night after they left Shady Belle.

Mary-Beth had some kind of girlish fascination with them both, Arthur in particular, and Sadie at least respected them, but the only one who could be said to actually like them was Abigail, and they had noticed early on that her influence in the gang was extremely limited.

Hosea would have made sure they were welcomed. But Hosea wasn't there. Besides, as much stress as everyone was under … well, it seemed cruel of them to add more. Even if that 'more' was simply their presence.

"How long will this take, you reckon?" John asked Arthur, as he passed him a beer.

"Well," Arthur sighed, taking a swig from the bottle as John cracked open his own, "been awhile since I traveled with a caravan. Depending on how often we have to stop for supplies or hunting, and whether or not we end up having to change our route, I reckon we could be out of Lemoyne in a week and a half. Then, maybe another week and a half to make over the Montana. We'll have to avoid Blackwater, a'course."

"So, what? A full month to Armadilo?"

"Probably more," Arthur admitted. "Something always sets you back."

"Christ," John muttered. "More'n a month with this lot,"

Arthur laughed under his breath. "You already spent near a month with 'em once before. And that time, Dutch was there, too."

"I know, I just …" John worked his jaw for a moment, then glanced out of the corner of his eye at Arthur. "Are you gonna think less of me if I say I'll be glad to be shod of 'em? For it to be just the two of us again?"

Arthur took another swig of his beer. "It'll definitely be easier," he admitted. "Fewer people to look after … fewer people to look _at_ us." The later he said in a slightly rueful tone, quirking a smirk at John.

As if on cue, they heard footsteps approaching from the camp. Both men looked over to see Abigail and little Jack walking over from the main camp, each carrying a stew bowl.

"Though you boys might be hungry," Abigail called out, when she got a little closer. "I got the worst stew in the state, right here."

"Well, with an endorsement like that, how can we refuse?" Arthur drawled, waving them closer.

"That's right hospitable of you, Miss Roberts," John agreed awkwardly, accepting the bowl from Jack.

"Hospitality ain't got nothing to do with it," she said, flatly but not unkindly. "We got a lot riding on you boys. We don't gotta be happy about, but it's true."

"Unhappy and alive is better'n smug and dead any day," Arthur pointed out, and Abigail snorted.

"Don't know that Dutch would agree," Abigail replied, a hint of humor in her voice. "You take the smug outta him, not sure how much would be left."

"Mama," Jack said suddenly, peering up from where he'd sat himself by John and Arthur's fire, "when are Uncle Dutch and Uncle Hosea coming back?"

All humor vanished from the group, and they stood in awkward silence for a long, heavy moment, before Abigail herded Jack back to the main camp.

*

_Then_

John suspiciously eyed the flask Arthur had tossed him, making the other man laugh.

"'s just whiskey, kid. Ain't you never had it before?"

John had only known Arthur for a handful of days, at that point. His ultimate motivations were a complete mystery. John's understanding of bounty hunters was, essentially, that they only cared about money. On the other hand, the few times Arthur had come back to the house while John was there, he'd given practically all his money to Eliza. He also knew that Arthur had been a gunslinger, and what John knew of gunslingers was that they were ruthless, immoral ruffians who would kill anyone who got in their way. On the other hand, Arthur had the opportunity to kill John while he was sleeping, both now and when he'd first caught him, and he hadn't taken it.

What John had actually seen of Arthur firsthand was that he seemed an honest, upstanding sort.

"So I guess you're going to turn me in this time?" John said, because that is what an honest, upstanding man would do.

"I done told you I ain't sending a child to the gallows," Arthur replied.

"I ain't a child!"

Arthur raised an eyebrow at him. "You really wanna argue me on that point, considering?"

John's face settled into a mulish expression, and he glared into the fire. "So what else is there? You sure ain't about to _let me go_ , else you wouldn't'a come all this way after me!"

Arthur cocked his head and looked at John for a long moment, his expression unreadable. "I'm here for my _gun_ , John," he said, finally, his tone matter-of-fact. "The coat, the food, the money—you can keep 'em. But the gun has … _sentimental_ value."

John jerked his gaze back up to the other man, dumbfounded, and then slowly pulled the revolver out from his satchel. "You chased me out into the middle of the desert, not to turn me in but … for _this_?"

"That's the one," Arthur said, expression brightening. "Toss it here and I'll be on my way."

John did as instructed, tossing the worn gun over to land in the dirt near Arthur's feet. It never occurred to him to worry about disarming himself in front of the other man.

Arthur immediately scooped up the gun and checked it over with quick, efficient movements, before tucking it into his own satchel with a sharp nod. "Well, it's been a pleasure knowing you, John Marston. I wish you luck."

Arthur lumbered to his feet, absently brushing the dirt off his trousers, paying John absolutely no mind. It was so baffling that John just watched for a long moment, until Arthur actually turned his back to him, fixing to walk away.

"So that's it?" John demanded, incredulous. "You're just going to let me go?"

Arthur hesitated a moment at that, and John could actually see his shoulders rise and fall in a sigh. "Yeah, I am," Arthur responded, sounding tired. "I ain't got it in me to drag you to the hangman, and if I brought you home with me, you'd just run off again. You ever heard, 'you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink'?"

"So you really, honestly, tracked me two weeks into to desert, not to turn me in, but for an old five-shot pistol?"

Arthur turned and gave him another long, unreadable look, and then he stalked across the fire and crouched down next to John, holding the pistol out—not for John to take, but for him to see. "You see this carving on the grip?" He did—it was a relatively crude carving of a buck's head, the antlers tangled above it like vines. "I did that when I weren't much younger'n you are. I took it off my father's dead body, and I carved into it so that it'd be _mine_ instead'a _his_. Used to be, I never put this gun down, not even to sleep. You remember the first thing you ever had, kid, that ever really, _truly_ felt like it was _yours_?"

John thought of the gun that preacher had given him, after saving him from hanging. The one he'd lost after the murder Arthur original chased him for.

What did it say about him, about Arthur, that for both of them, the first thing they ever truly owned was a _gun_?

"Yeah," Arthur said when John did reply, his expression knowing. "So to answer you, yes, I tracked you four days—I didn't get home until four days ago—into the desert for an old five-shot pistol. 'Cause here's the thing, kid—when you ain't on the run, you get to _keep_ your past, instead'a throwing it away every time you move, or running away from it."

"My past ain't worth keeping," John snapped back hotly.

Arthur pushed himself back to his feet, tucking the gun away again. "Your future ain't gonna be, either. But I reckon that's none'a my business." He tipped his hat to John, like he was a gentleman. "Well, like I said—good luck to you. Try to to kill anyone around my patch again."

John stomach rolled with something between nausea and anxiety as he watched Arthur stalk out of the light of the campfire, but he didn't follow him, didn't call him back.

He had his pride.

*

_1899_

Being on the road with that many people was exhausting.

John a wanderer for a good portion of his life—on the run, before he met Arthur, and then on the trail, after they left Armadillo—but unlike Arthur, he'd never moved with a gang. He'd never be even partially responsible for something as _needy_ as a group this large.

He and Arthur could live on the trail for weeks with nothing but dried meat, canned beans, and the occasional rabbit or turkey. This camp would nearly starved if someone didn't hunt up fresh game _every single night_.

He and Arthur had maybe five sets of clothes between them, two bedrolls, a two-man tent, and maybe a couple dozen trinkets and such; small, easy-to-transport charms with sentimental value. Anything more they'd once had was collecting dust at the house in Armadillo, if it still existed at all. This camp had cots and card tables and a goddamn _phonograph_ , and they brought all of it _with_ them.

He and Arthur could go days in silence at times, because there was nothing that needed said. They knew each other well enough to move around each other without discussion. This camp—

"Dutch ain't here to _baby_ you anymore, _Miss O'Shea_. You need to learn how to work on your _feet_ instead'a on your _back_."

"Who are you to judge me, you drunken harlot? Go crawl back inside your bottle."

"At least I ain't a useless, tarted-up _hole_ only good for _sticking things in—_ "

"You reckon this'll go on much longer?" John asked Arthur, tiredly. In the week or so they'd been on the road already, tempers had been wearing thin. Screaming fights had become not at all uncommon, but Miss Jones and Miss O'Shea were definitely the biggest problem.

"Susan'll knock their head together eventually," Arthur said, looking utterly unbothered by the ruckus, carving what was probably another little wooden animal for Jack.

"And then it'll just start up again another night," John grumbled.

"Folk are tired, and hungry, and scared. Surely you remember what that was like," Arthur replied. John made an unimpressed grunt, and Arthur sighed. "Look, John, if you want to scout out ahead, get away from this a couple days—"

"Why're you always offering me to _leave_?" John demanded, sounding slightly offended.

Arthur gave him a quelling look. "Because I _know you_ , John. Just like you know me."

After a moment John had to admit, at least to himself, that was fair enough. "Well, I ain't going. The minute I turn my back you'd be off riskin' your neck on another fool's errand. Like you said, I know you too."

Arthur opened him mouth to reply, but just then they heard the shuffling sound of someone coming through the long grass from the main camp. It was Tilly Jackson, a half-asleep little Jack on he hip, looking just as tired as any of them.

"May we join you for a while?" She asked softly, nearly a whisper. "Abigail … she don't want Jack around all that."

"And rightly so," Arthur replied instantly, and he stood to take Jack from her arms, cradling the boy easily. "You sit yourself down, Miss Tilly. You both can stay as long as you like."

*

_Then_

Arthur found him again, two week later, in a cell in the Blackwater city jail.

John had rented a bunk in a lodging house in Blackwater, paid three dollars of his stolen money to stay for the first week, and fifty cents per night after that. Every morning he told himself that this would be the day, he would get on a boat or a train and get out of town. And every evening, he went to the nearest saloon and picked enough pockets to pay for his drinks, before heading back to the lodging house to pay for another night.

No one seemed bothered by a fifteen-year-old drinking in the saloon and sleeping in prostitue-filled boarding houses. No one seemed to notice he existed at all.

But nothing good lasts forever, and even shitty things come to an end, eventually, so it was only a matter for time until he was caught with his hand in the wrong pocket.

"You know," Arthur drawled, leaning up against the cell bars, startling John out of a doze, "feller up front told me your name was John _Morgan_."

John blinked up at him, still half-asleep. "Couldn't exactly tell 'em the other name."

"Hm," Arthur said, his expression unreadable. "Well, suppose it works out. Chief of police agreed to release you to my custody. Told 'im we was brothers. And that was _before_ I knew you gave my name, so he bought it."

John blinked, still asleep enough that his mind was having a hard time parsing that. "Were you watching me?"

"Don't be stupid. I'm in Blackwater all the time, and the jail is where I do my business. It'd be hard to miss you."

John rubbed at his eyes. "What'd it cost you?"

Arthur grunted. "Enough."

"Well, go get it back. I don't need your help."

"Yes," Arthur replied immediately, pushing himself away from the bars, "you do."

"Why do you _care_ , anyway?" John finally exploded. "Sure, you _say_ you was like me, but you don't _act_ like it! Your wife says you was a gunslinger, but I ain't never known a gunslinger what went off to join the _law._ I think you're a _fuckin' liar_!"

It was intentionally spoken to provoke, to make Arthur leave, but, as always seemed to be the case so far, John had underestimated him.

"I am," Arthur said, cocking his head. "I'm a liar, and an thief, and a murderer. The shit I done, John, you wouldn't _believe_. The stuff people want me for, that's only the things I got _caught_ for. I was _good_ at not getting caught. It helps if anyone who's seen your face is _dead_."

For the first time since he'd met the man, John actually felt _afraid_ , of Arthur, felt a chill run through him.

"And if you're waiting for me to say that I changed because I found _God_ , or a _conscience_ , well, that ain't why. The things I did, I did 'cause I felt I had to, felt I had a _right_ to." He stepped up to the bars again, leaning with his forearm above his head. "The world treated me like _shit_ , so I treated the world like shit."

"And then you stopped because you had a _kid_ , I heard that from your _wife,_ " John shot back.

"I had a kid for _years_ before I stopped, John," Arthur replied lowly. "You wanna know why I _really_ stopped?"

"Sure," John drawled, trying to sound disinterested, "tell me."

Arthur leaned close like he was about to tell John a secret. " _Because I decided to_. And no one and nothin' decides my life but me."

John would later discover that this statement was largely false. Arthur allowed a _lot_ of other things and people to decide his life, including, later, John himself. But maybe the issue was that Arthur didn't fully realize that, himself.

"And it's just that easy?" John challenged. "You just _decide_ to be different?"

"Guess you'll never know until you try," Arthur replied, deceptively casual. "I'll meet you outside."

*

They'd been on the road three weeks or so when fate caught up to them.

John and Arthur's camp had been moving progressively closer as the days passed. Now, near the shore of the upper Montana, they were sleeping just outside the circle of wagons, close enough to hear _all_ the goings-on but far enough away to exclude themselves if they chose. It was barely sun-up when the ruckus started, and John almost rolled over and went back to sleep, thinking it was more infighting. It was Abigail's voice that changed his mind; high-pitched and strident, though he hadn't heard the words. He shook Arthur awake, and they shouldered their way through the crowd of people to find—

To find Dutch Van der Linde and his boys, standing in the middle of the wagons, looking like a week of hard riding.

"Arthur, my boy," Dutch said when he saw them, his tone a threat, "fancy meeting you here."

 


End file.
